A publication of the Episcopal Diocese of Western Massachusetts Toward the Beloved Community Holy Conversations About Race SUMMER 2016 From Bishop Fisher Racism: We Have Breathed It In This fall our diocese will begin offering days of reflection called TOWARD THE BELOVED COMMUNITY: HOLY CONVERSATIONS ABOUT RACE. I am grateful for the team formed from the Social Justice Committee that created the framework and gathered the resources for these days. I look forward to participating and having my vision expanded and my soul engaged. When I reflect on my own journey of race relations, I can see how my understanding has evolved. When the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960’s was changing our country, I was too young to appreciate what was going on. It was later, in college and seminary, that I developed a passionate interest in the Movement, studied it in-depth, and spent several summers working with the southern poor. My admiration for the great men and women that made history working for justice continued to grow through the years. With the cadets at West Point and the youth groups of Grace Church, Millbrook, I placed great emphasis on the witness of Jonathan Daniels – the young Episcopal seminarian who gave his life in the struggle. Underlying this was a belief that if we could all just follow in their footsteps, racism would end. Left Right: The four little girls killed in the 16th Street church bombing in Birmingham; the Edmund Pettus Bridge - site of “Bloody Sunday”; Jonathan Myrick Daniels, d. 1965 While continuing my deep appreciation for all that has been done for racial equality by so many – the famous and those unnamed in the great cloud of witnesses - my understanding of racism has been expanded by a fable I heard a year ago. Here it is: A long, long time ago there was a place where people were very poor. They were farmers and their tending of the land produced very little. Life was hard. But then someone discovered a fertilizer that made all the difference. The crops grew and grew. The society became prosperous and remained so for hundreds of years. Then one day it was discovered that the fertilizer was, and always had been, toxic. The food people were eating, the air they were breathing, was poisonous. It was actually killing them slowly. 2 ABUNDANT TIMES “Slavery has ended but the racism that comes with it remains. It is not just past history. It is part of us. We have breathed it in.” Right: “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop,” The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. speech delivered 3 April 1968 Memphis, Tenn. Here is the insight. For hundreds of years we took human beings from Africa and enslaved them. They worked on our farms and America became prosperous. Slavery and the racism that comes with it is a big part of our story. The struggle with racism is not about “helping black people.” It is about understanding and addressing the toxic atmosphere that makes all of our lives less than what God intends. Professor Ryan Williams Virden explores this further in writing about racial justice. “The first step to creating this justice is to understand how it was sidelined in the first place. We must understand the way that whiteness — fitting into the Anglo-Saxon archetype – has been valued historically via formal avenues such as legislation and school curriculum as well as informal ones such as social customs, traditions and practices. Because much of this is passed down through generations, or happens away from public scrutiny, or is largely implicit, it is necessary to learn and then unlearn this sordid history and way of being. Once we can come to grips with the ways whiteness keeps us from our own humanity and strangles our souls there is no other choice then to struggle for this justice. We won’t struggle because we are trying to help anyone else, or feel bad for them; we will struggle because our own freedom, our own humanity, is tied up with everyone else’s.” I’m going to reflect more on this statement and I invite you attend TOWARD THE BELOVED COMMUNITY: HOLY COINVERSATIONS ABOUT RACE - because “our own humanity…is tied up with everyone else’s.” There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus (Galatians 3:28). +Doug ABUNDANT TIMES 3 Toward the Beloved Community: By Victoria Ix We have experienced a summer of violence and grief unmatched by any time in recent history with the possible exception of the summer of 1968. The deaths of police officers in the line of duty, the deaths of African Americans on our city streets, in police custody, or resulting from the process of arrest, confront us with several troubling questions: • How do we unequivocally and gratefully support law enforcement and, at the same time, express concern about practices and perceptions that may need to change? • How do Black Americans manage the pain and the anger provoked by these events? • How deeply are white Americans affected by unconscious racism? • How is white privilege understood? What does it look like? • How does the lens of Christianity change how we see these events? upcoming year: September 24, 2016 of the deeper waters of systemic • How does the Baptismal (Pioneer Valley Corridor); April 1, racism and white privilege. Our day Covenant challenge and guide 2017 (Worcester Corridor); May us to a better world – toward 20, 2017 (Berkshires Corridor). will include prayer, presentations, the Beloved Community small group discussions, short envisioned by Jesus? Facilitated by the Rev. Lisa videos, lunch, and Holy Eucharist.” Green and Ms. Lee Cheek, these The Social Justice Commission, “holy conversations” will enable Bishop Fisher endorsed the new under the direction of the Rev. Lisa participants to speak to one another process in a direct communication Green and the Rev. Dr. Harvey using the language of faith to to clergy and parishes. “The Church Hill, has created a process by which express what is happening around has a history of talking about race individuals can approach these us and inside of us, with regard to and we really do need to keep that questions: “Toward the Beloved race. This formation day, according going, in some ways now more than Community: Holy Conversations to the description provided by the ever. ”Anti-racism Training” has had About Race.” Social Justice Commission, will lean its place in our collective effort to into the tradition as a framework walk together as children of God. This is not a required program for envisioning a hopeful future. But we want this to be about what like Safe Church, but the hope is “We’ll share the sacred stories, we are for, not what we are against so that everyone – especially those Biblical and personal, drawing us it is time for us to restructure those in leadership in our congregations toward transformation; explore the holy conversations and imbue them – will take part in one of three Episcopal Church’s complex history with all the positive energy we can conversations scheduled during the on racial justice; and navigate some mu s t e r.” 4 ABUNDANT TIMES Holy Conversations About Race Lee and Lisa have completed the the one we so admire. Here is her Province I training for facilitators. “It Meet the Artist explanation of Make Your Mark; was powerful to come together with Be an Everyday Hero story quilt: people from all the New England dioceses who are involved in anti- “The handprint is a universal racism and social justice work. And symbol of spiritual power, signifying I think it gave all of us a wider sense action, strength, and protection. of what this offering could look The handprints found throughout like,” Lisa said. “As a participant in time, in every culture, transmit previous versions of anti-racism the spiritual power of the person training (in seminary and in my who has ‘made their mark’ on former diocese), I think there the world. This image celebrates was more of a focus on the ethics, the often hidden contributions of history, social process dynamics-- direct support activists who hold which are all important. But we're the potentials of so many others in The diocese has secured permission clear that growing in our ability to their hands and have the courage to to use Make Your Mark; Be an have these holy conversations is practice the art of inclusion.” Everyday Hero, by Beth Mount, as spiritual development, an evolving the logo for “Toward the Beloved openness to the movement of the This is folk art as instrument of Community: Holy Conversations Spirit to heal, encourage, transform. justice. While her artistic process About Race.” It's equipping the saints for the work engages persons with disabilities, of ministry, as Ephesians says--and her vision of the world is expansive, Mount’s quilts are renowned for at a time when such ministry feels inclusive and characterized by right their beauty and social messaging. particularly urgent. But speaking relationship. Mount cites her own Her designs are created by a “beloved the truth in love, we must grow historical and geographical context community” of persons with up in every way into him who is as formative in her approach to art: intellectual and physical disabilities, the head, into Christ, from whom their allies, family members, and the whole body, joined and knitted Continued page 23 support staff. together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is “My life work of four decades is working properly, promotes the body's devoted to the possibility that all growth in building itself up in love.” people, particularly those with disabilities, are seen in the light of their capacities and potential.