What does the Beloved Community look like? What will it look like? How will we know if we get there? Is this just about race? I have been asked these questions, and more, by members of our community.
One of the challenges of using the language of Beloved Community is that it is open ended. On most days, that lack of specificity is a virtue. Because revelation, truly, is not sealed and we are always discovering how justice and mercy are calling us to open our eyes and widen our circle. But that lack of specificity can also frustrate. It is nice language but what are we really talking about, what would such a community look and feel like?
As I was completing my service as UUA President, I asked the Leadership Council (senior staff) to join me in crafting a vision for our faith in a pluralistic world. That Leadership Council statement helped bring the vision into focus:
“With humility and courage born of our history, we are called as Unitarian Universalists to build the Beloved Community where all souls are welcomed as blessings and the human family lives whole and reconciled.”
- “A Vision for Unitarian Universalism in a Multicultural World,” Unitarian Universalist Leadership Council, October 1, 2008
We spoke of reconciliation, because there are wrongs that need to be recognized and relationships that need to be restored. Both confession and reparations are necessary. This repair work is critical to highlight but in and of itself does not constitute a vision that will sustain us.
But that statement does point to a vision: “where all souls are welcomed as blessings.” This is a vision that could lead to diversity, if we welcome all souls as blessings. The goal, however, is not diversity. The goal is our welcome. Welcome is a spiritual and a practical discipline.
“All Souls” is one of the most common names for Unitarian Universalist congregations. The flagship congregations in New York, Tulsa, Kansas City and many other communities carry that name. Living out and living up to that name, in practice, is our challenge.
The heart of our theological tradition, for both the Unitarian and the Universalists, was rejection of the Calvinist notion of the elect, the special few who were destined for heaven. And rejection of that theology is still needed today. Have you paid attention to the controversy swirling around Roseanne Barr, who described African Americans as apes? Less than human.
The images for queer folks are just as demeaning. Asylum seekers at our borders are described as rapists, terrorists and gang members not mothers, fathers and children. Right now, today, our nation is paying border control agents to separate small children from their parents to punish and discourage immigrants. This is Calvinism and white supremacy on steroids. The President wants more immigrants from Norway.
Constant vigilance seems required to prevent the separation of the human family into those who have worth and dignity and those who can be cast outside the circle of care and concern.
The language of Beloved Community calls us to resist the racist and sexist and heterosexist and ableist and Anglo divisions of the human family into the “sheep vs the goats.”
The Beloved Community is more than resistance, however. It is more than advocacy in the world. The work of our Board of Trustees and other groups within the church to understand the structure of privilege in which our community exists is critical as well. We are beginning to understand how those structures of privilege press down on members of our own community and call into the question the welcome of the stranger that we proclaim.
The Beloved Community involves hospitality, welcome to the spirit of life and of love that we see in the face of our neighbors…all of our neighbors. The Beloved Community calls us to live with humility and courage born of our history and with an open-heartedness that allows us to know joy.
Blessings,
Bill