White people are told to make sure BIPOC voices are dominant in conversations and work to dismantle white supremacy culture.

I get that.

I also hear the voice of Reesma Menakem, the author of My Grandmother’s Hands. Here are a few remarks from him while being interviewed along with Robin DiAngelo, by Krista Tippets on a podcast titled Toward a Framework for Repair, aired July 9, 2020.

…when white folks and allies say that they’re allies, and what can we do, and you think you’re being helpful; or what should I do now?, and you think you’re being helpful, there is such a brutality to your words that, many times, I can’t fool with white folks. I can’t be around you. I need you to leave me alone. I need you to not ask me what my opinion is of a Black man getting murdered with no regard.

…and they’re going to have to start really beginning to figure out how they build culture around abolishing white supremacy.

Anything other than that, for me, really is — and you’ve heard me say this before — really is performance art. It is not real. If you’re not going to be with other white bodies for three to 10 years, grinding on specifically about race and specifically about the things that show up when white bodies get together to build culture, then I can’t fool with you.

The idea that people can come up to me and ask me, what should I do?, when we have Google, is just crazy on its face.

… white folks have got to do this work themselves,

NOTE: this is a powerful interview and it is worthwhile hearing these words in Reesma Menakem’s own voice. You can listen to the full interview here: On Being Podcast; July 9, 2020.

The Unitarian Universalist congregation that I joined recently voted to accept the UU Eighth Principle …

I thought I should try to understand what the Beloved Community might look like. Here is one description extracted from a blog titled “Pluralism, Pragmatism, Progressivism. Carl Gregg wrote…..

“In progressive religious circles, you will often hear calls to “build the Beloved Community,” but I’m not sure we always appreciate the full historic resonance of that phrase. The term “Beloved Community” was coined by the early twentieth-century American philosopher Josiah Royce (1855-1916). But most of us learned it not from Royce but from The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who often spoke of the “Beloved Community” as his ultimate goal.”

As an early example, after the Montgomery Bus Boycotts in speaking about the larger movement toward which they were building, Dr. King said:

The following is personal exploration into the first few chapters of the text, Widening the Circle of Concern: Report of the UUA Commission on Institutional Change – June 2020.

This text is available free as a pdf. The following notes represent my own gleanings of statements that seemed important to me. Direct quotes from the text are indicated with quote markings. Other statements are adapted or paraphrased to make sense out of context.

NOTE to the UUSA Board of Trustees…. I wonder if it might be useful to share these quotes in the weekly UUSA Newsletter, as proposed at the most recent Board meeting?

Gleanings from the Preface

“Addressing the perennial problem of race in Unitarian Universalism is not broadly seen as a theological mandate.”

We need new definitions of multicultural competency for religious leaders (including lay leadership).

“Too few white people are engaged in intentional anti-oppression work.”

We need to articulate what a liberation theology could look like for UU’s.

Boston Globe Front Page Story: November 21, 2021

She submitted a print featuring Indigenous ‘ghosts.’ He called it ‘genocide art.’ She claimed it was a white person acknowledging the pain caused by colonialism. Who is right?

NORTHAMPTON — When members of this city’s arts council logged into a meeting in late September, few could have imagined a retired librarian’s artwork was about to torpedo their upcoming biennial, a popular juried show at the local library.

But then artist Jason Montgomery joined the meeting to voice his concerns about the upcoming exhibition, which was to showcase work by scores of artists from the four counties of Western Massachusetts. Montgomery, who is of Chicano and Indigenous descent, said he was particularly concerned about a print by Doris Madsen, whose work “400 Years Later, no. 4” portrays the Mayflower as it floats through a fog of spectral figures she’d previously described as Indigenous “ghosts.”

Chapter 14 in: Toward a Meaningful Life – The Wisdom of the Rebbe Menachem Schneerson  by Simon Jacobson

And the living shall take to heart.

Ecclesiastes 7:2

The soul never dies.

The Rebbe

WHAT DOES DEATH REALLY MEAN?

Death: The very word strikes fear in people’s hearts. They consider death as unfathomable as it is inevitable. They are barely able to talk about it, to peer beyond the word itself and allow themselves to contemplate its true implications. This is an understandable reaction, given the fact that so many people think of life as nothing more than a state in which the human body is biologically active. But we must ask ourselves: What happens after death, if anything? What does death really mean? How should the surviving loved ones react?

The mystery of death is part of the enigma of the soul and of life itself; understanding death really means understanding life. During life as we know it, the body is vitalized by the soul; upon death, there is a separation between body and soul. But the soul continues to live on as it always has, now unfettered by the physical constraints of the body. And since a person’s true character—his goodness, virtue, and selflessness—lies in the soul, he will ascend to a higher state after fulfilling his responsibilities on earth.

John Philip Newell, the author of Listening for the Heartbeat of God: A Celtic Spirituality, is one of the most prominent Christian teachers of spirituality in the Western world.

Formerly Warden of Iona Abbey in the Western Isles of Scotland, he now divides his time between Edinburgh, where he does most of his writing, and teaching on both sides of the Atlantic as well as leading international pilgrimage weeks on Iona. He is the co-founder of Heartbeat: A Journey Towards Earth’s Wellbeing (www.heartbeatjourney.org), established to expand sacred vision, deepen spiritual practice, nurture reflective community, and enable action for change.

The following is a talk he gave in Hartford, CT last year that I hoped to attend but could not while I was caring for Phyl.  Fortunately, it became available on You Tube.  I’ve linked a slightly edited (shorter) version here (click on the picture) as well as an audio-only file (since it is simply a “talking head” in video form).

Audio Only –

I’m really not sure why anyone would be interested in my thoughts on the afterlife but it helps me to clarify my own thinking when I write.  So I did.  I’ve been thinking about death a lot as several close friends have died recently and the corona virus has surely put death in the news.  These sort of ponderings seem to happen to many people as they age.  I offer these ideas in a public forum in hopes that some readers might share their own thought/feelings about life and death (in the Comments box below). 

SO HERE GOES…

First, I’m not terribly fond of the word “afterlife” – even though I used it in the title.  Most people know what is meant by the term afterlife, so it is useful.  But the word “afterlife” feels too final as I have come to believe in the continuation of consciousness after the death of the physical body.  For me, the death experience appears to be more of a transition to another form of existence, a continuation – not an ending.  I need a better word to describe the “condition of being that follows once the spirit-self has left its bodily container.”  Perhaps you have a suggestion.

I surely don’t have a picture in mind of a heaven with “pearly white gates, hanging out with old friends playing harps in the clouds etc.”, I do understand why that description might be a useful story to tell children and I suspect it can be a comfort to those who believe.  But it’s just a bit too easy for me to accept what seems more like a fairy tale than a thoughtful depiction of the state of existence that continues following the demise of the body.  Nevertheless, I believe that we live forever, as suggested in Francis Hodgson Burnett’s classic book, The Secret Garden.