Dear friends,

I wanted to follow up on the dialogue about the Black Lives Matter sign. About 40 people shared reactions to the sign over the two meetings Wednesday, August 5 and 12.  I am grateful and proud to say all the comments shared over these two meetings were constructive and respectful.  There were many different reactions shared. However, I believe some consistent themes ran through all the comments.  First, everyone agreed that Black lives do matter, though there was a wide range of opinion about the non-profit organization Black Lives Matter.  Second, I heard near universal agreement that talking about race is important.  We need more opportunities to talk about and try to understand complex thoughts and emotions related to race without feeling ashamed or judged. Third, signs are generally ineffective means of communicating and easily misconstrued.  It would be better not to use signs, nevertheless, this sign did catalyze a constructive conversation among us at Grace. Finally, there was a great hope expressed by nearly everyone that Grace would find more effective ways to communicate solidarity and support for our Black neighbors and to work with all our neighbors for dismantling racism and racial healing.

 

With regard to action, I want you to know that members of our vestry, outreach committee, and other parish leaders have been in conversation with leaders in the local Black community to identify ways Grace can be a partner in this work of racial healing and dismantling racism.  As our plans take shape we will communicate about them and invite your active support.

 

With regard to opportunities for constructive dialogue about race, Grace is organizing Sacred Ground dialogue groups to begin in September.  Please join this effort.  It is critically important that we learn what the Sacred Ground curriculum has to teach us about racism in our history and even more important that we learn to talk with each other to better understand our personal experience of race.

 

Finally, I want to let you know my plan is to leave the sign up through the 55th anniversary of the death of  Jonathan Myrick Daniels, August 20.  I hope you will use the sign over this next week as an encouragement to keep talking and working for healing. As you know, Jonathan Daniels, VMI '61, died in 1965 when he placed himself in front of Ruby Sales to save her from a rifle shot fired by an deputy sheriff while they were working to register Black citizens for the vote in Hayneville, Alabama.  The Episcopal Church has chosen to commemorate Jonathan Daniels with a 3 minute video: Here am I, send me.  The church doesn't have a celebration of Ruby Sales, the person Jonathan Daniels offered his life to save. Which is a shame, because she has gone on to offer her life in the work and service of racial healing.  You might take a few moments to listen to this Ted Talk by Ruby Sales to honor her, too.

 

This work of dismantling racism and racial healing is hard and can be scary and painful, as all kinds of healing can be.  I know some of us are afraid that this work may further divide and diminish the church.  But I see a great deal of resilience and strength in the Grace community that has come out of the work you have already done.  And I want to encourage you not to let yourself fall into fear over what will happen if we try to do more work like this.  Grace will keep building strength and resilience through doing sometimes painful and scary work for the sake of Becoming Beloved Community.

 

 

O God of justice and compassion, you put down the proud and mighty from their place, and lift up the poor and the afflicted: We give you thanks for your faithful witness Jonathan Myrick Daniels (and Ruby Sales), who, in the midst of injustice and violence, risked and gave his life for another (who continues to give her life for others); and we pray that we, following their example, may make no peace with oppression; through Jesus Christ the just one, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.