What do you hear? What do you hear now? Fabric is turning to hear. First to hear and keep center the voice of George Floyd saying, “I can’t breathe,” and giving terrible voice yet again to the experience of being black in the United States. We turn to hear, again the voice both deep inside and beyond us that calls us to do justice, love kindness, and limp humbly with our God. We turn to hear, again our own imperfect wrestling with our role as an antiracist community and as individuals. Join us this weekend to turn, together, to ask once again what we hear, now.
Listen to the Podcast. Melissa Lock shares various voices to help us explore our individual and communal response right now.
Join the Zoom Room - Sunday @ 10:45AM. Conversation starts at 11:00AM.
Trouble getting in to the Zoom Room? Email Katy.
Welcome to this conversation
We each come to this from many different places. There is no one answer to how to respond right now. Our response to George Floyd's killing (not to mention the pandemic) is about much more (and less, in a way) than finding the right answer to a question, the right paradigm, model or politics.
Our response needs to be both a rhythm and a listening.
A rhythm: A strong, regular, repeated pattern of movement in the world. Inside - out then back again. Pause, act, learn, repeat.
A listening: to others, ourselves and that third strand we call God.
Our responding won’t end and then we go back to normal. We will learn, practice and repeat like a dance or the seasons or the scientific process.
What do you hear? What do you hear now? How about now? Keep listening. Keep moving to the deeper music of the Fabric. We’ll do it together.
Homework practice: Write about how you have experienced this rhythm this week: pause, act, learn, repeat. Listen to someone else’s story about their experience of it. Share yours.
Links
Opening Voices: Ihotu Jennifer Ali, with MN Healing Justice; Philonise Floyd and Rev. Al Sharpton, Eulogy; Saint Paul Mayor Melvin Carter; Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms; Gianna Floyd, George Floyd Official Instagram Page
Additional links: Greg Meyer (Fabric), Futurescapes: Hearing Voices (full message) ; Joe Davis Poetry ; Robin DiAngelo, This is the paradigm shift that could stop racism ; Rachel Martin, Cultural Coherence: Embodied Antiracism for White People ; Brené on Comparative Suffering, the 50/50 Myth, and Settling the Ball
There is always work to be done. Some of it can stop and some of it still needs to happen. But you don’t always have to be the one carrying the pack of the work! This week, take stock