Laura Park, Beloved Community Staff Team and Director of Membership and Hospitality
 
In the fifth SoulWork video, Team Dynamics co-founder and President Alfonso Wenker and Minister of Faith Formation KP Hong further explore the necessity of having an among antiracist multiculturalism practice. Alfonso begins where KP left off in the fourth SoulWork video, responding to the paradox of among and to the temptation to move to structurelessness to accommodate individualism. As we focus on and critique structure and process, however, we distract ourselves from the conversation we need to have about whiteness, racism, and the ways in which we’re reinforcing or dismantling white dominant culture.
 
The ability to recognize White Supremacy Culture Characteristics, as outlined by Tema Okun, is a helpful skill to support the conversations we need to have about whiteness and racism. Once we understand how perfectionism, defensiveness and the other characteristics reinforce white supremacy, then we can employ their antidotes so that these qualities develop a more right-sized place in congregation life and elsewhere. The antidotes particularly help us avoid weaponizing the characteristics of white supremacy culture and our naming of them against each other.

As Tema writes, “I have come to understand that some people, when introduced to the ‘White Supremacy Culture’ article and its list of characteristics, respond with anger, thinking that my goal in listing the characteristics is to shame or blame. Sometimes people are angry about being connected to any of the characteristics, feeling that to admit we have perfectionist tendencies or a belief that our way is the right way makes us bad..." Instead of feeling bad, the antidotes invite us into work that can better build the Beloved Community.
 
Practices among us support the work of recognizing the characteristics of White Supremacy Culture and employing antidotes to right-size those characteristics. In the next SoulWork video, KP and Alfonso explore the impact of these among practices further, in a faith context.
 
SoulWork for you:
On the paradox of among:
Spend a week noticing the paradox of among that Alfonso and KP explore in this video.

• When are you tempted to critique structure?
• When do you want process to better accommodate your individual needs?
• When might that distract you from a deeper conversation about whiteness and racism?

Find a conversation partner to unpack what you notice.

Laura Park, Beloved Community Staff Team and Director of Membership and Hospitality
 
Each video in the SoulWork series offers ways to think about and develop practice on both sides of the Double Helix model. In the third video, Team Dynamics co-founder and President Alfonso Wenker explores the among practices that move us out of the stage of Minimization on the Intercultural Development Continuum (IDC) into Acceptance, where we have more intercultural competency skills to fruitfully respond to and connect across cultural differences.

Alfonso notes the difficulties of moving out of Minimization, the ways in which the move into Acceptance challenges our comfort, and the ways in which practices of noticing and naming our own physical responses and of noticing and naming the behaviors and practices we’re seeing among us can help us move closer to our church’s multicultural ends. Alfonso provides some wonderful questions we might ask ourselves when we’re together to help us notice and name our practices. The most moving part of this video is at the end, where Alfonso explains HeartWork, the hardest part of leaving ethnocentrism as our home base. Make sure to watch the video to hear his invitation into deeper understanding and practice.
 
SoulWork for You: Spend a week noticing and naming your body’s reactions to cultural differences. What feels hot? Cold? What feels tight or closed? Loose or open? What do you notice about how you’re sitting or standing and where you’re looking?
 
SoulWork for Groups: Invite the groups you meet with at Unity Church to do the same noticing and spend some time unpacking your reactions. When your group members are familiar with the individual noticing practice, move into a practice of noticing together. Set aside time to notice patterns in your group practice, without judgment. In what ways do those patterns move you closer to or further away from the church’s multicultural ends?
 
Also, if you or your group is interested in completing the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI), a tool that will tell you as individuals or as a group what IDC lens you’re using in intercultural experiences, please contact Drew Danielson, [email protected]. 
 
Next: SoulWork#4 – Paradox (Coming July 28)
Previous: SoulWork#2 – Presence

SoulWork is the term we use at Unity Church for when we engage our Unitarian Universalist faith formation and antiracist multicultural work together. We use a Double Helix model to invite the congregation into this SoulWork and the SoulWork practices, models, tools, and an eight-part video series help us live into increasing complexity on this double helix.
 
To learn more about SoulWork, please visit our Adult Faith Formation page. There you will find a link to the Double Helix Model of Faith Formation and Antiracist Multiculturalism worksheet to help you develop practices for Within, Among, and Beyond. Visit Unity’s YouTube Channel, SoulWork Playlist to view all eight videos in the series. 
 
Image credit: Graphic Recording by DrawingImpact.com ​

Laura Park, Beloved Community Staff Team and Director of Membership, and Shelley Butler, Beloved News Team
 
SoulWork is the term we use at Unity Church for when we engage our Unitarian Universalist faith formation and antiracist multicultural work together. We use a Double Helix model to invite the congregation into this SoulWork and the SoulWork practices, models, tools, and an eight-part video series help us live into increasing complexity on this double helix.
 
Each video in the SoulWork series provides clarity on the what, why, and how of antiracist multiculturalism, and offers ways to develop practices on both sides of the Double Helix Model. The first in the series of videos focused on the practice of noticing and listening. The second has to do with the spiritual practice of presence, a key skill in grounding us in this work and what will help us sustain it. 
 
Preoccupied presence is the norm. We tend to approach a conversation or group work with some trepidation and a screen; thoughts and questions that distract us from being fully present: I want people to know I am serious about this work–am I coming across as I want? What will people think of me if I say or do the wrong thing? 
 
Sometimes without even realizing it, we present a persona to others, a somewhat perfected version of our authentic self. It’s understandable because it can be scary and uncomfortable to unveil ourselves and risk showing that our values may not always align with our actions. But given that we are all in this work together, and that one of our ends is to “know each other in all our fullness,” isn’t this the right place and time to practice being fully present with each other and with those we partner with in the community? 
 
Wonder. Heart. Clarity. These are what can come from the spiritual practice of presence, but also what we are likely to miss if we don’t. 
 
How do we practice being fully present with others? Meditation is one practice of being fully present Within. To practice presence Among, first let go of the inner critic that tells you that you are not enough, that you need to present a persona of who you want people to think you are. As Alfonso says, “Presence is more important than personality.” Then, let go of all the distractions of the day, pay attention to the person or group at hand, and allow yourself to “lean into the quality of presence that interconnects us all.”