From Susan Frances – Assistant Minister for Congregational Life

Dear Friends,

I’m sending out a big thank you to everyone who volunteered at any point during our week-long rummage sale event, from set-up to the very busy sale itself to clean-up. I have heard many stories of new members getting to know people and excitement about our revised and streamlined format that no longer involves every room downstairs. Thank you!

As often happens in life, joys and challenges are often intertwined within the same event. This is true for our rummage sale this year.

At the rummage sale on Friday there was an incident in which three customers shopping in the sanctuary were asked to leave the building and our security volunteers were called to walk them out of the building. Over this past week, I have talked with 11 UCE volunteers and 4 customers who were present that Friday. Relevant to this learning moment is that the UCE volunteers who I talked with identify as white, and three of the four customers who I talked with identify as black. In my conversations, I found everyone was willing to have the conversation with me, to share what happened and to share ideas about what we might learn from this situation.

There will be ongoing smaller conversations that will address what happened as we hone our processes and procedures for engaging with each other during the rummage sale and other events when we invite the public to join us in the building for large events, and as we engage with the three aims of our Anti-Oppression Task Force:

1. Expanding ownership of the anti-racism and anti- oppression work;
2. Power sharing; and
3. Radical inclusion and hospitality.

What I want us, as a community, to grapple with collectively, are the larger disconnects happening when we are engaging with someone who has an identity different from our own. During my conversations this week, I discovered two recurring disconnects.

The first disconnect was that most of the white volunteers I spoke with did not perceive of the situation as being related to race. They experienced the situation as having to do with a financial transaction and the customers involved happened to be black. The black customers I spoke with experienced the situation as being related to race.

The second disconnect is the disparity in experience based on what “calling security” meant. The white volunteers I spoke with knew that security was a group of UCE volunteers. The black customers I spoke with did not know that. For the black customers I spoke with, calling security meant calling the police, which, as we know from repeated public incidents, is an escalating scenario for someone who is black.

The entire event is more nuanced than these two pieces I am highlighting, but I believe these particular differences in experience that came across during my conversations are something we can ponder together. For me, these disconnections are a direct reflection of the US culture in which we live in. There are no ready-made answers for how to bridge these disconnections. I believe the answers lie in our ability to keep calling each other in. A key part to calling each other in is listening to each other’s experiences. Not tweaking the rules or fixing the processes, although those things can often have positive long term affects, but in trying to be open to hearing each other across our varied cultural and life experiences. Trying to bridge the gap in understanding and expectation.

One of the components to being called in is being able to hear the invitation to stay engaged in the conversation. And one of the ways to stay engaged is to stay present. And one of the ways to stay present, is to breathe – breathe through the desire to shut down or to move on too quickly. To breathe into being open.

So, I invite you right now to take a deep breath in and recognize the feelings you are having after reading about this. Take a few breaths as you acknowledge and hold those feelings. What you feel is what you feel, so honor that. As you exhale, silently name those feelings if you can.

I invite you to inhale again, holding those named feelings, and when you exhale, I ask that you let those feelings go for the time being. In their place, I invite you to inhale and feel a sense of curiosity about what brings us, you and the people with similar identities as you and also the people with different identities from you, what brings us as individuals with unique identities to a place of having different experiences in the same moment. As you exhale, let go of any anxiety or discomfort that has arisen.

I invite you to inhale again, this time with a sense of wonder. Wonder at the complexities of life, wonder at what we are capable of addressing if we are able to stay present and engaged. This is one of the learnings of being called in. This ability to stay present, to stay curious, to stay engaged in relationship with each other as we work through difficult situations. This is one component to how we call each other in, or maybe back in, to the work of being in relationship. I believe it is through relationship, through being able to share our experiences with each other, that we will find a way forward to transforming our own lives, our congregation, and our society into a truly equitable multi-racial community.

Yours in working toward transformation,

Rev. Susan