The Tapestry of Racial Justice

A recent conversation got me thinking about UCUCC as a weaving – a tapestry even. The more I have followed that line of thought the deeper it has taken me. Herewith an attempt to share it.

For a start, if each of us is a length of yarn somewhere in the weave, what a gorgeous fabric we make up. We have such a panoply of strengths and talents and passions and vulnerabilities and love in all kinds of forms. There are some short, bright pieces of yarn in our tapestry that are folks who are only with us briefly but leave a memorable mark, and some longer, more somber pieces that are folks who quietly hold everything together simply by being here. There are some who provide texture by presenting challenges that we grow by dealing with and some who provide body to the cloth by being someone we can always lean on.

That image can be pursued much further, and it is fun to do so. But the aspect that drew me into thinking about this actually leads in a slightly different direction. For this the tapestry image is a little too passive, but the weaving image remains in force. In this imagining the elements of the weaving are not our personae, but our strengths and passions and commitments. They are many and they are forceful. In combination, they give UCUCC a potential for being of tremendous service to God and the world. The risk is that some are so strong that they can overshadow others in people’s eyes.

A number of years ago the process of becoming Open and Affirming had that effect. Those issues continue now and always will, but they no longer crowd out others. Currently the issue that can overwhelm people is Racial Justice. We have chosen to declare ourselves a Racial Justice church, and for some of us who are Racial Justice Activists that is a central passion. That means that for us the issue permeates our efforts in the church. What it does not mean is that we – or anyone else – feel that it ought to be the central passion for everybody in the church. For example, the central passion of folks in Sacred Earth Matters is the Earth in all its pain and glory. Those of us wrapped up in Racial Justice are overjoyed when our passions overlap with theirs, as frequently occurs, but for the rest we are simply in awe of what they do. Other groups and passions are less visible, but their energy pulses through the church and we all benefit. The energy from each of those passions feeds the others.

And what about the folks who need to go quietly – or for that matter raucously!-on with their lives and not hurl themselves into one of these passionate groups? That is absolutely fine. We will, of course, all continue to attempt to entice them into sharing even a small part of our passion, but we won’t love them a whit the less if they don’t. Going back to the original tapestry image, no one is being asked to change their color or texture. Continuity and what we each bring to our tapestry are of huge value all by themselves.

There is one other aspect of our tapestry that needs acknowledging, even though that acknowledgement carries a lot of discomfort. The warp threads on the loom – the ones that were attached to it long before any of us joined the weaving – like the threads from the whole American tapestry, include many that can be traced back to the kidnapping and enslavement of Black people and the genocide of Indigenous people. America has a long history of denying the existence of those threads and suppressing the guilt that results from admitting to them. Accepting and dealing with that fact is hard and it is painful. And that is where, actively or very quietly, we can all support each other. Absolutely no one gets it right all the time, but love and listening and letting ourselves grow can take us a long way – together.

– Ginger Warfield