"Soul Work"

READING

"Soul Work" is a compilation of papers and responses from a dialogue on anti-racism that was held at Unitarian Universalist Association headquarters in Boston in 2001. "Soul Work" has become an important resource for congregations - and may soon be the text for an Adult Religious Education program here. It was edited by Unitarian Universalist ministers Nancy Palmer Jones and Marjorie Bowens- Wheatley. This winter the UU community was saddened by the loss of Marjorie Bowens-Wheatley, who died of cancer at the age of 57.

Excerpt from a paper by William R. Jones:

"We live in a world, Frederick Douglass warns us, where 'neither persons nor property are safe' and 'no parity, no peace' is the order of the day. In other words, the fundamental cause of social conflict is uncorrected oppression. Social diagnosticians among us cite several causes for our predicament: the startling statistics of over- and under-representation with respect to specific groups in society who consistently get the 'most of the worst' and the 'least of the best'; the unsettled passionate debates about public policies such as environmental and social welfare, affirmative action, racial profiling, diversity, and multiculturalism. All these - and you can add your own causes to the list - are blamed for the expanding and exploding community conflict.

"But the preeminent cause of our predicament, about which Douglass counsels, is uncorrected oppression - a playing field without reparations in which groups that are allegedly superior use their surplus institutional power and privilege to maintain access to resources, thus assuring their survival and well-being.?

"Our nation and our faith community are mired in a fierce debate about the cause of and cure for this state of affairs. In the final analysis, this is a debate about whether racial discrimination is still present in our institutions and whether it continues to harm African Americans. Rival diagnoses of this nine-lived American dilemma compete for supremacy in public policy, forcing religious liberals - whether we want to or not - to 'choose a side' and embrace one vision for the public domain."

SERMON

As the story goes, the "running-away" slaves made their way across the river from Kentucky to Ripley, Ohio. Guided by a courageous oarsman and a distant light, they were met on the other side by a Presbyterian minister, John Rankin, and their freedom. From 1825 to 1865, more than two thousand slaves found shelter with the Rankin family, who also helped them move on further north.[i] The Rankin home is now a State Memorial, open to the public.

In his essay in "Soul Work," William R. Jones says that today's religious liberals must choose sides and "embrace one vision" of how we understand racism today. Racism has been "disguised," Jones argues, and "institutionalized" into the structures of our society. Classical racism, in the form of slavery and segregation, has evolved into what Jones calls "neo-racism," which is just as pernicious as ever. But like a "mutant virus," today's "racial oppression" is "not only immune to our updated economic, social, and political vaccines but feasts on them."[ii] Jones asks his faith community - Unitarian Universalists - to look at our own institution, our history, and our role in perpetuating injustice today.

While every nineteenth century abolitionist could choose the side of freedom and dedicated people of faith such as John Rankin knew exactly how to help "running-away" slaves get where they needed to go, our situation today appears - at least superficially - to be more complicated. Racism today is not simply personal - although at times it still is, as everyone living in Los Angeles already knows. It is also transpersonal, expressed in the allocation and use of power. When we talk about freedom today, we mean living up to our hopes and dreams, but their fulfillment depends as much on privilege as it does on faith in ourselves.

Every institution, religious, secular, or Wal-Mart, is carrying some of the injustice of the past. Our own institution, the Unitarian Universalist Association, has asked us to look at what we can do to make the necessary corrections. At the last Unitarian Universalist General Assembly, the annual meeting of congregations, a grass-roots movement began among the delegates. They called upon all congregations "to hold at least one program over the next year to address racism or classism," and to report our experiences to the 2007 meeting.

The momentum for this resolution came from many sources, including negative incidents "impacting UU communities of color, especially youth," at General Assembly itself. Added to that internal reflection was the debacle of Hurricane Katrina, which reminded us all of just how entrenched and deadly racism can be. A letter from the UUA Secretary Paul Rickter concluded, "Our experiences together in community show that we have much work to do to live our UU principles more fully."[iii]

Meanwhile in Santa Monica, Edna Bonacich began asking what we could do as a congregation. After Jacki Paddock and Amelia Harati returned home from General Assembly, it was only a matter of time before they and Edna found each other and began exploring ideas together and inviting others to join them. This growing group, the Committee on Multiracial Development, is planning educational and community- building experiences for us, with the first event planned for February 11. We have tremendous resources in our congregation to do this work together. What shape it will take we have yet to see, but we are off to a strong start.

What is foundational is how we see our role as people of faith. John Rankin, the Presbyterian minister of Ripley, Ohio, knew what to do in his day. He and other abolitionists worked actively against slavery, often at their own risk, because they knew it was wrong.

The work never really changes. Our job is to identify the social injustices of our day and do what we can to overcome them. In typical Unitarian Universalist fashion, this work begins with some soul- searching of our own. Have we become complacent, or worse, complicit, in perpetuating oppression? What do we need to learn to live up to our principles and be the community we want to be? This is the "soul work" we are asking ourselves to do. Also in typical Unitarian Universalist fashion, soul work means education. In "Race: The Power of an Illusion," the documentary we will be screening February 11, we learn that race is a social construct, not a biological difference. Scientific research has already demonstrated that we share a lot more DNA than we realized. This powerful truth will lead us to think in new ways about what our world is and how it should be.

As the producer of the PBS documentary writes, "perhaps . . . we can shift the conversation from discussing diversity and cultural difference to building a more just and equitable society."[iv] This has to do with understanding why we "disproportionately channel advantage and opportunities to white people." Privilege is injustice because it is "indirect discrimination."[v] Some people are not as free to realize their hopes and dreams as we like to think.

Along comes a fired-up group in our church, asking us to look at these difficult issues, discuss them, and then do what we can to correct injustice. They are willing to begin this soul work - which, let's face it, takes courage to do - and bring us along with them. Our life as a community can only get better because of what they are doing.

William R. Jones wrote that we liberal religionists must choose sides, embrace a vision together, if we are to overcome the oppression that is part of our history. That means choosing to make this dialogue, and the discoveries that accompany it, part of the life of our church. I wonder how many of you have been hoping for this all along.

The vision before us is compelling. As one Unitarian Universalist minister, Wayne Arnason, said in "Soul Work: "I recognize that in the interdependent web of life, what happens to communities of color happens to me, or happened to my ancestors, or will happen to my descendants - and the ways in which I can be accountable for and make a difference regarding what happens are both the content and the fruits of my Unitarian Universalist faith." We are connected in more ways than we can see. How we make a difference is how we live our faith.

Back in the days of slavery, John Rankin made a difference living his faith, sheltering one "running-away" slave at a time. In our day, we live our faith by challenging power and privilege. It is wrong that some people are less free than others to realize their hopes and dreams. We still live in the world that Frederick Douglass described, a world in which there is "no parity, no peace."[vi] And we are all diminished by it. Yet our vision calls us to account, to act on our commitment to justice and equity, and to build community that is restorative and safe. Soul work is good work. Especially when we do it together.

[i] Virginia Hamilton, "The People Could Fly" (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993). [ii] William R. Jones, "A New Paradigm for Uncovering Neo-Racism," in Soul Work, ed. Marjorie Bowens-Wheatley & Nancy Palmer Jones (Boston: Skinner House Books, 2003). [iii] http://www.uua.org/TRUS/060714_responsive.html [iv] http://www.pbs.org/race/000_General/000_00-Home.html [v] This is Jones?s language. [vi] As quoted in "Soul Work."