Spiritual Practices for Living as an Antiracist Person

I wanted to give a follow up to the extraordinary series of retreats we completed during the summer of 2020. I offered the invitation to this conversation out of a deep personal need for a place to listen prayerfully to the Holy Spirit, voices of Black brothers and sisters and people of color, and my own heart. I felt strongly I needed the security and accountability of the community to do this work and am forever grateful I wasn't the only one feeling that need. I'm not sure I would've known the way forward without the generous resources and insight of my friend and fellow Spiritual Director, Vernée Wilkinson. 

Back in June, as I was praying and pondering what it means to live in the knowledge of God's love while at the same time lamenting all the ways I've not reflected that love, my friend Vernée Wilkinson sent me an email with the subject line: An Examen Invitation. Before I opened the email I didn't have clarity about what I'd like to offer here this summer and after I opened the email I knew exactly what I wanted to offer you this summer. 

Once in June, July, and August, we met for two hours for a time of contemplation, conversation, and a greater sense of the callings we've each been given in the work of antiracism. We meditated on Scripture, considered the value of three specific spiritual practices, spent time in individual silence, and leaned toward Vernée as she vulnerably shared her wisdom and counsel with us.

Here's an excerpt from a Q&A with Vernée that's a good word for all of us right now.

Tamara: You and I talked last week, and I was sharing with you this tension that is part of the reason for me wanting to gather folks this summer. It's the tension of needing to listen and lament, but also knowing that there’s action needed, there’s a way that we want to actively live differently. We were talking about whether listening, lamenting, and living differently play out on a linear timeline. You have some great insight on that that I’m hoping you could share.

Vernée: I think in the past few weeks of our national, and in many ways, international conversation around racism, I’m hearing a lot from white communities or non-black communities “It’s really bad now” or like “We’re really listening now.” I’ll speak for myself as a black woman, it’s been hard to hear that because historically and personally, there’s been plenty of accounts on the record that have been wildly inappropriate.

I think for myself and probably everybody else gathered in this group is of age enough to have a pretty vivid memory of Rodney King in L.A. during the ’90s. I just recently rewatched the James Baldwin documentary “I Am Not Your Negro” and they show some clips of that moment in time and it’s not that different from what George Floyd experienced. Rodney King did survive, but the impact on people and communities from police brutality isn’t new.

So there’s a great deal of listening to be done, but action and listening are both in many ways overdue so there’s some very needed catch-up work to be done. Listening can be done while accountability is being taken, while forward action is being taken, and also the understanding that it’s not necessarily going to be perfect work and having the humility that there might some missteps in your work of being an antiracist person but that’s part of doing any sort of work.

When [you and I] were talking last week, we spoke about how school systems and work systems are very achievement-oriented so now that more people are trying to engage in antiracist work it doesn’t mean that you’re going to get an A+ on the first time that you show up to the work or show up to a conversation that needs to be had. That really shouldn’t be the goal, necessarily.

I’m very grateful that we’re having these sorts of conversations in the context of our faith and trusting that there’s no condemnation in God and that you can make your best effort and if someone wants to say “Actually, you made an effort here, but it felt a little tone-deaf or it felt like it fell short”, don’t let that stop the work. Continue with the work instead of taking it on from a self-condemnation point of view or from a fragility point of view because the work is essential. This is about a work of justice and we serve a just God so it’s a little bit too easy to get caught in the feelings and attempt toward perfection. To do antiracist work, there has to be room for error, and just trusting we can continue to work through it together.

Also, I’m here today sharing and this is very much my experience and my point of view but I can’t speak for every black person in the country. There might be things that I’m sharing today that kind of click and you might find ways to turn that toward something actionable in your life and if it’s received by your black neighbor in a way that doesn’t resonate with them that doesn’t mean it was the right thing or the wrong thing. It just means blackness is a spectrum as is every other cultural experience in this country and around the world. That’s one thing that as black people, we really just want to be seen as individuals and people with varied ideas and varied expressions of blackness.

And, for those of you who might be curious, here are the Scriptures and spiritual practices we considered together this summer.

Vernee and I are dreaming up possibilities of working together again and you'll be the first to know what comes from that. In the meantime, please feel free to email me for a copy of the examen she co-wrote.

Thank you again for all of the ways you've offered your companionship here on Patreon. I'd love to leave you with the prayer I offered at the very beginning of our first retreat. 

Father God and Jesus our Good Shepherd and Holy Spirit, Counselor, and Comforter, we acknowledge that we are carrying a mixed bag of feelings and thoughts, questions, and anxieties with us in this conversation. We acknowledge that we’re limited and finite and that even on our best days, with our best intentions, we are not able to achieve the kind of inner peace and relational peace and certainly not the kind of peace we long for in our world.

Because you’re our Good Father, we want to actually say thank you. Thank you that this responsibility, not ours, but yours. That you as the Creator of all things, of every human heart, creator of our own hearts, you know us better than we know ourselves. With gladness, we fall into your complete strength, your unlimited, infinite ability to hold together all of these tensions. Thank you, Jesus, that you have done the work - you have come, lived as a man, were crucified, buried, resurrected, and ascended, seated right now next to the Father. In some mysterious way, you are interceding for us. You hold all of these things together, and we enter that union even though we don’t fully understand it.

I thank you for those who’ve gathered tonight, who’ve brought their questions into the light of this community. Thank you for the comfort that provides. We entrust this time to you. Help us to remain in a sense of safety, that we are completely secure in you. In those moments when we might begin to feel insecure, unsafe, struggling with some kind of inner restlessness or discomfort, that we will remain here with you. Help us to not run away, but to stay open to your voice in our lives. Thank you for your great love.

I pray this in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

May the peace of Christ guard us all as we head into the final quarter of 2020,

Tamara

NOTE: The artwork I chose for the cover of our handouts is entitled "Sermon on the Mount" by a wonderful artist named Laura James. She's in the process of rebuilding her website, but you click here to see this particular painting (even purchase it as a poster!).