July 3, 2020
Beloved Community Program Update:  Finding Our Next Right Action
Unity's Beloved Community Staff Team
As part of two gatherings following the killing of George Floyd, “Finding Our Next Right Action” provided Unity Church members a chance to connect online, ask questions, discuss next steps, and stay engaged.  Breakout groups organized by topics—from protesting to legislative demands around policing to hands-on volunteering—provided opportunities for constructive exchange of information and discerning our next right action.  From the array of ideas generated, the Beloved Community Staff Team worked to organize and discern next steps, prioritizing actions that expand upon existing ministries, that create brave space for deeper relationships with community partners, that ask for greater humility and spontaneity in addressing gaps in our commitments, that enlarge our prophetic imagination in the work of racial justice. There is work for everyone, from Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) assessments to community organizing training with Team Dynamics to legislative work on policing with the Racial and Restorative Justice Team.  For those who participated in earlier breakout sessions and all others who are seeking to engage in this moment’s call to action, please click here for Finding Our Next Right Action.
 
June 24, 2020
​Beloved Community Program Update: #WeCantBreathe // Finding Our Next Right Action
Unity's Beloved Community Staff Team
In early June, a little over one week after the killing of George Floyd, Karen Hering and KP Hong of the Beloved Community Staff Team convened two programs, prompted by conversations of Black clergy and leaders. The first, #WeCantBreathe, was an opportunity for people to come together on Zoom to reflect on what our broken hearts can teach us in times like these, and what our UU faith calls us to do in the wake of the killing. We looked inward to our spiritual practices as the first step. 

Finding Our Next Right Action, the second program, was held the following night. Seventy-five people showed up online to ask questions and discuss next steps. Breakout groups organized by topic such as “protesting,” “police reform/abolition,” “neighborhood organizing,” and more, raised many good questions, highlighting the need to learn from and perhaps be guided by our uncertainty. The resource list generated from these discussions is being prepared separately. Follow-up and next steps are underway by the Beloved Community Staff Team, please watch for more information. CLICK HERE for a summary of the breakout groups from this online program.

What became clear is that the next steps forward have to lead from engagement with the community. This will help us cultivate or strengthen right relationship with Black leaders by building on connections already made or by building new ones. If ever there was a time to lean into our Ends of creating brave space for racial healing, dismantling dominant culture, and creating a multicultural spiritual home built on authentic relationships, this surely is it. But, how do we take our uncertainty and work in proximity with Black leaders to affect change? 

The Beloved Community Staff Team is working to identify key pieces of potential work from the range of ideas generated at these discussions, as well as address any gaps that might need our attention. There is work enough for everyone. Some of it is personal work like taking the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) to examine our own path toward the anti-racist values to which we aspire. Other work is practical, like helping with rebuilding businesses damaged in the protests. Still other work is legislative, to make sure this moment doesn’t pass without significant change. Please watch for more information about our next right actions in congregational email messages and on the Unity Church website.

May 29, 2020
​Our list of community resources includes where to donate money and resources, current needs and information about direct action/protests, and anti-racism learning resources.

Merrill Aldrich, On Behalf of the Beloved Community Communications Team

​Anti-racism books are at the top of the best-seller lists this year. It seems we are wondering more urgently how to help in a way that is constructive and impactful. It’s a desire both to understand and to address questions about what we ought to be doing differently. This is also a conversation that has been ongoing at Unity Church, and our community is here to support one another as we decide what right action looks like.

Scholar Ibram X. Kendi describes parallel processes of introspection — critically examining our own assumptions, attitudes, and even vocabulary — and meaningful anti-racist action. He argues that the two activities could work together to move us past arguments of overtly held racist beliefs and into more effective actions against racist structures deeply embedded in our culture. So, what are some sustaining steps that we can take on these twin paths, working on ourselves (within) and in the world (beyond)?

First, the study of these issues is not in vain! Reading, watching, listening — learning — is absolutely helpful, especially as the result better informs our actions. A huge number of resources exist, and lately many folks have collected and listed and cataloged hundreds of them. Here is a sampling of the very tip of the iceberg:

• Remember, working on yourself is real. In fact, “doing our own work” is a request many people of color have made of white people about these issues — if you’re a white person reading this, that is its own call to action.
• “Begin where you are.” Perhaps do a little work to understand where that is relative to others, so you can choose a starting point that makes sense. 

• Prioritize learning tools that work for you. If you love reading a thick book, do. If radio or podcasts work better, do that. Workshops and discussion? Seek them out. Unity Church is one great place to find multiple channels for learning including our library resources: www.librarycat.org/lib/UnityChurch
• Lists of more resources are deep and wide including Anti-racism Resources for White People, Sarah Sophie Flicker, Alyssa Klein May 2020: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BRlF2_zhNe86SGgHa6-VlBO-QgirITwCTugSfKie5Fs/

If you have taken this look around, to get a handle on where you are and where others stand, you may want to consider some of these: 

• The Case for Reparations (article by Ta-Nehisi Coates) https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-reparations/361631/
• How to be an Anti-Racist (book by Ibram X. Kendi) 
• A UU study guide pointing out “socially acceptable” attitudes and behaviors that are in reality covert forms of white supremacy: https://uucsj.org/study-guide/legacies-of-systemic-injustice/white-supremacy/
• Wade into the social media platforms of Twitter and Instagram and follow Black, indigenous and people of color firsthand.
• Understand from the source what Black Lives Matter is about: https://blacklivesmatter.com/about/

​Consider the question of who is writing and speaking. For white people, myself included, white people talking to other white people on these topics can be a helpful way in, due to shared experience and perspective, but should not be the end point. Black, indigenous people, and people of color, while they should not be burdened with “explaining” racism, have done a tremendous amount of work putting this information out there. Seek that out and read it.
Finally, taking carefully considered and meaningful action is vital, and can take many forms:

• Understand and act on these issues in your local community, school systems, and local government.
• Understand and act on these issues in your workplace.
• If you have money to give, do. 
• Find, connect with, and support organizations that are already doing work in this area, and let them lead. 

Finding Our Next Right Action
Thursday, June 4 • 7:00 p.m. 
Unity ministers open a space for understanding the many options for supporting change in this moment. Facilitated small groups will help you connect with others and information for making donations, hands on helping, legislative action, and protest. ​

​CLICK HERE to watch the Minneapolis memorial service for George Floyd.

Racial Justice Film Series: A Time for Burning
Sunday, June 7 • 3:00-5:00 p.m. 
​The Racial and Restorative Justice team invites you to join them online to view and discuss the 1966 documentary, A Time for Burning. A young white Lutheran minister in Omaha, Nebraska, tries to reach out to a Black congregation but encounters opposition from his church elders and the acerbic opinions of a Black barber. The documentary chronicles these events and what unfolds. All are welcome — watch for a link to join the viewing.

​We are in a state of emergency here in the Twin Cities, and increasingly across the nation and beyond, following George Floyd's brutal murder last week. 
 
The crisis is real and raging. #WeCantBreathe. For some, it is taking everything we have and then some. Every day presents more to do (and learn) than there is time for doing and learning. For many, especially black, indigenous, and people of color, trauma current and old alike is setting off overwhelming alarms, in the sometimes conflicting ways trauma does. For all of us, we are asked to consider how we will live out our values in the double pandemic of racism and Covid.
 
This week (starting tonight), the UUA and Unity Church (informed by our collaboration with black leaders) will be offering several invitations meant to help us share these questions in a supportive and deeply challenging way that will lead to action and lasting change.
 
We, the ministers of Unity Church, hope you will attend one or more these offerings online. We hope you will find your own next right action, as the teachers tell us to do. We hope none of us will let the pain and terror of these times pass unused in our desire for and our commitment to a world of justice for all.
 
Rev. Janne Eller-Isaacs
Rev. Rob Eller-Isaacs
Rev. Lisa Friedman
Rev. Karen Hering
Rev. KP Hong
 
UUA Prayer Vigil and Call to Action: #WeCantBreathe
Tuesday, June 2 • 7:00-8:30 p.m. CST 
Join us as we gather to reclaim black freedom, decry white supremacy, grieve the murder of black lives, and recommit to living our Unitarian Universalist values. Speakers include Rev. Susan Frederick-Gray, Rev. Carlton Elliott Smith, Everette Thompson, Rev. Michael J. Crumpler, Paige Ingram. Musician: Melanie DeMore.
 
Unity Church: #WeCantBreathe
Wednesday, June 3 • 7:00 p.m.
Honoring George Floyd with prayerful vigil and an invitation into personal reflection in writing, silence, and facilitated conversation, on the meaning of these events and our call to respond. Open to all. Led by the Rev. KP Hong and Karen Hering, with Unity's ministers and staff.
 
Finding Our Next Right Action
Thursday, June 4 • 7:00 p.m. 
Unity ministers open a space for understanding the many options for supporting change in this moment. Facilitated small groups will help you connect with others and information for making donations, hands on helping, legislative action, and protest. 

CLICK HERE for Keep Your Lamps Trimmed and Burning, from Ahmed Anzaldua, Director of Music Ministries.

Music Message: ​On Saturday, Tesfa Wondemagegnehu went live on Facebook with a #justiceforgeorge message. It includes a sing-a-long. CLICK HERE to watch. 

CLICK HERE to view photos by church member Erika Sanders from Sunday's protest at the Minnesota State Capitol.

​If you missed Friday's Beloved Community Staff Team video message, CLICK HERE to watch it now. This page shares a list of resources.

CLICK HERE for Lift Every Voice and Sing, today's music message from Ahmed Anzaldúa.

Ray Wiedmeyer, On Behalf of the Beloved Community Communications Team

The Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI, https://idiinventory.com), developed by Mitchell R. Hammer, professor of international peace and conflict resolution at American University, assesses intercultural competence as the capability to shift cultural perspective and appropriately adapt behavior to cultural differences and commonalities. To help us grow our ability to be an anti-racist, multicultural spiritual community, a number of key ministry groups at Unity Church are being invited to take the IDI. As part of a series of articles about the IDI, Ray Wiedmeyer, a member of the Beloved Community Communications Team, shares what he learned from the IDI and how he determined to increase his cultural competency. If you are interested in taking the IDI, please email Drew Danielson at drew@unityunitarian.org.

Back in the early 1970s, I spent a semester abroad in Malaysia as a college student. Classes consisted of Malay language study, Eastern Religions, a hands-on Asian Textile course, Psychology of Adjustment and included a month of travel in Japan, Thailand, and Taiwan. That semester of college was one of the most exciting of my whole college education. I was suddenly immersed in a world that was totally different from my world back in America. Everything from food, to housing, to government, to religion was totally “not” the culture I had grown up in or was used to. My return home months later was filled with culture shock. I suddenly saw things in my environment that I had never really seen before.

In 2016 I took the IDI (Intercultural Development Inventory) for the first time at Unity Church as part of the Mid-America Mosaic Makers Conference. Prior to taking it, I would have told you that I thought I was a pretty culturally well-rounded person. After all, not only had I traveled world-wide in the years since college, but I also had friends and acquaintances from a variety of cultures. It was a surprise then when the IDI rated my intercultural skills as firmly in the center of the Intercultural Development Continuum, also known as Minimization.

It left me in a bit of a quandary. What was I missing? The competency they spoke of was something I wished I had. I saw it as a necessity if we really want a world where everyone is treated as an equal and true justice is achieved. Our Unitarian principles are just words if I’m not working on a becoming a better me; a person moving in the world in such a way as to not ignore or negate others.

After taking the IDI the first time, I set up a one-on-one conversation with a qualified administrator. We went over those first results and she suggested some activities I might work on. One of those activities, I remember, was keeping an intercultural journal. This was a place where I “might reflect on cultural differences and commonalities I observe in my daily interactions with people from other cultural groups.” I remember doing this for several months and feeling more and more aware of those interactions as they came up.

I also continued to volunteer at Mano a Mano, where work activities here in the U.S. and my occasional trips down to Bolivia gave me frequent real-life practice interacting with that culture. I began to look for, and engage more fully in, the cross-cultural friendships I already had. I took part in events sponsored by Unity Church where I was immersed in the discussion of white privilege.

I began to read more about American racial history and I traveled to Africa to learn more about slavery. I found myself becoming more and more conscious of the white culture I was constantly swimming in and how it kept me from seeing and acknowledging that there were other ways of seeing the world. And last but not least, I worked on staying present when my cultural view of the world was being questioned or challenged.

Recently, I took the IDI again. I believe it was the third time and I was glad to see that I had made some measurable progress. I believe it was what I had been working on the past four to five years that had moved me on the continuum, hopefully making me more competent in my interactions with other cultures. 
​
Yes, I’ve made progress but I’ve also become aware of how much I still need to learn, so I am not about to end this life-long journey anytime soon.

There is a reason why there are Kleenex boxes in the pews at Unity Church. I wasn’t the first to need them, and I surely won’t be the last.

I learned about Unity Church in a roundabout way from Gary DeCramer, my then professor at the University of Minnesota Humphrey School. He had invited a community activist from India to speak at my graduate seminar. The activist was profound and inspiring. I asked why he was in Minnesota and he mentioned he was invited to speak at Gary’s church. That intrigued me. A church that was giving this man a platform seemed like a place I should check out.

I hadn’t stepped inside a church for nearly ten years. My mom was Catholic and I attended Catholic schools growing up. My father was somewhere between agnostic and atheist. At a certain point I came to question nearly everything coming from the pulpit. At Catholic services, I bristled at saying words I didn’t believe. 

So, it was with some trepidation that I arrived at Unity Church. That trepidation was elevated by the fact that I literally couldn’t find the door. 

This was before the entrance was transformed; there was still a cloister around the church. I must have been late, because there wasn’t anyone to follow. The actual way in didn’t look like a door at all — more like a secret entrance on a wall. 

Once inside, I was greeted warmly by someone with a “welcome” button on their shirt and directed to where I should go for the service. The church was beautiful. I was grateful I could sight read music and was able to sort of follow along with the opening song. When I sat down, I sat on a Kleenex box. 

There was an invitation to greet our neighbors. I was used to the Catholic version, saying “Peace be with you,” but in this case people were using their own words, which moved me. There was a swell of noise and you could almost feel the connections growing around you. After the minister reined everyone back in to continue the service, that feeling of connection remained.

And then it happened — the Embracing Meditation. It felt like a calling in for those within and beyond the church walls. The minister said, “Your gifts and your wounds are welcome here.” 

It felt like these words had been spoken directly to me. The fact was, I was wounded. I had been grappling with PTSD following a trauma and wasn’t doing well. It was probably why the idea of returning to a faith community seemed like a good idea for the first time in a decade. I started to cry. And then I remembered there were tissues right there waiting for me. 

At the end of the service, I stood in line to thank the ministers. I think I actually hugged them. I went to the Parish Hall and there were donuts. And there was coffee. And there was Gary. He introduced me to people I now consider friends. 
​
Attending services has been hard for me sometimes. It may have to do with that first visit. Hearing “your gifts and your wounds are welcome here” brings me back to that difficult time in my life. But I would never want those words removed from the Embracing Meditation. There is someone out there who, upon attending Unity Church for the first time, may hear those words and feel that they have found a home. We should keep the Kleenex boxes, too.

By Peter Heege
​The Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI), developed by Mitchell R. Hammer, professor of international peace and conflict resolution at American University, assesses intercultural competence as the capability to shift cultural perspective and appropriately adapt behavior to cultural differences and commonalities. To help us grow our ability to be an anti-racist, multicultural spiritual community, a number of key ministry groups at Unity Church are being invited to take the IDI. The sessions are also available to individual congregants. In the February issue of commUNITY, Mary Pickard discussed how Unity hopes to use the IDI. This article expands on that with an introduction to our three IDI qualified administrators and the role they will play.

Our Qualified IDI Administrators 

​Betsy Hearn is a lifelong learner who actively pursues opportunities to grow as a human.  She is a learning and development professional with experience across the non-profit, higher education and corporate worlds.  She has worked in leadership development, organizational development and diversity and inclusion for the past thirty years.  She has been an IDI qualified administrator since 2017 and has facilitated workshops, debriefs and coaching for individuals to understand the benefit from the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI).

My name is Kelley Nelson and I am a member of Unity Church and qualified IDI administrator.  I am excited to offer you the opportunity to take the IDI assessment and receive feedback from me over the next few months as we work together to become even more effective in our cross-cultural work.  Here is a little bit about myself:
 
Kelley Winchester Nelson has spent her career advocating for educational equity and developing cultural competency in a myriad of settings and diverse circumstances.  Upon graduating Cum Laude from Colby College with a BA in Sociology and a minor in Women's Studies, Kelley spent seven years with The Steppingstone Foundation in Boston recruiting, preparing and supporting youth from under-resourced communities as they applied to and matriculated from top independent schools in the area.  Kelley served as a teacher, advocate, and cultural broker working with families to identify their educational goals and finding the right match in academically rigorous, though predominantly white and upper class, private schools, while simultaneously challenging those schools to change their cultures and environment to be truly diverse and welcoming spaces.  When her family relocated to the Twin Cities, Kelley joined The Blake School's lead administrative team as the Co-Director of the Center for Diversity creating change from within at a prestigious independent school.  It was there that in 2006, Kelley became a qualified Intercultural Development Inventory administrator and became a student of the developmental model of intercultural sensitivity.  Kelley has since applied her knowledge and expertise in the development of cultural competency coupled with a deep understanding of white privilege, power, and oppression, in work with teachers and students in St. Paul Public Schools, the East Metro Integration District, and currently in her roles with several youth development programs in the Twin Cities

​Tim Wendt is an experienced HR professional with experience working with executive leaders in the corporate environment.  He helped to lead executives at a Fortune 500 company through a cultural competence journey that led to the organization developing a cultural competence and DEI roadmap.  With more than 30 years of human resources experience he brings both breadth and depth to corporate and DEI initiatives. He is an IDI qualified administrator and has facilitated hundreds of workshops for thousands of employees.