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A Beloved Community is a community aware. This includes awareness of the other, of course. We strive to be ever aware of the needs of the world around us, as expressed in the World Communion events and services that so many of us celebrated earlier this month. We look to the needs of our local communities, in issues of justice, in the needs of those in poverty, in the cries of the lonely, in physical and mental health issues of both those in our congregations and those who live on the streets beyond the sanctuary of our own walls. This awareness of the needs and aspirations of others is vital to a healthy and transforming congregation.
So is self-awareness. Self-awareness is called by many names: We know something about self-reflection from many wise souls who have walked the path of faith. From Julian of Norwich (“Where do we begin? Begin with the heart"), to Meister Eckhart (“Go into your own ground and learn to know yourself there”), to Thomas Merton (“You do not need to know precisely what is happening or exactly where you are going. What you need is to recognize the possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment, and to embrace them with courage, faith and hope.”), the importance of self-understanding through prayer and deep reflection is a pillar of faithfulness.
How do we as faithful participants in a congregation engage in both self and other awareness that is so important within and beyond the church community? It takes both invitation and intention to build a community that is aware of both its individual needs and the health of the congregation as a whole.
Invitation may come from the pastor. It may come from someone serving on a committee or a board. It may arise from the questions of a new member or the excitement of someone who wants to participate in meeting a community need. A couple of weeks ago I experienced such an invitation to self-awareness from the pastor of Christ Church UCC in Milwaukee, which I have been attending recently. In her sermon on that Sunday, she spoke about ways to pray. As she talked about different forms of prayer, she invited those of us in the congregation to give examples from our own lives. The examples people gave were filled with self-awareness and reflection. One particular example, given by a middle-aged man, was an example of a prayer that says “I’m sorry.” He spoke very clearly about what he was sorry for. “I’m sorry for times that I have said mean things to others and I wish I didn’t do that.” He followed this moment of incredible and humble self-awareness by saying, “I’m going to work on being different than that and to keep my mouth shut when I want to say something mean.” This man’s courage, self-compassion and humility gave him the words to express both an awareness of his actions and their potential impact, and a way to see how things might be different if he changed his approach.
I was really impressed by the way that he had so sincerely responded to the invitation to talk about his own “I’m sorry” prayer. I was equally impressed by the way he added his own intention to do things differently in the future. This was a beautiful example of how responding to an invitation to self-reflect, combined with an intention that gave the reflection future purpose, is a powerful thing indeed. In this case, “prayer changes things.”
Prayer is one way that we have of looking at our own impact on others or checking in to see whether we are living in ways that are faithful and life-giving and whether we are partnering with God to be the kind of person we want to be. In the case of that congregation at Christ Church, it also takes a beloved community to have the grace to hear each other’s intentions with compassion and grace. Many times in church communities we are called to reach beyond our own agendas and judgments to actually bear witness to the spiritual and practical changes that people are trying to make. Self-reflection takes risk. Self-awareness and intention take courage and insight. We are called to be that beloved community here and now.
There are, of course, so many other ways in which self-awareness helps a beloved community grow and change. Many who are reading this may come from or know of congregations that have been in conflict over a range of issues, problems or opportunities. There is nothing more challenging to healthy communities (and maybe nothing that holds as much opportunity for growth) than disagreement. But here’s the thing: Conflict without self-reflection creates the danger of mindless, mean behavior. And as tempting as name-calling, judgments and superior attitudes might be, they don’t get us to a place of mutual understanding or creative problem solving.
There are at least two different people I know of who speak of ways to deal with conflict that seems insurmountable. One is Parker Palmer, who says that when the going gets rough, “turn to wonder.” If you find yourself feeling defensive (or “triggered”), try asking yourself, “I wonder what brought this person to this belief and why they are feeling the need to say these particular things right now?” And also, “I wonder what I can learn from my own reaction?” It’s a tough and valuable thing to suspend judgment long enough to wonder.
The other is Kathryn Schulz, who studied the issue of “being wrong”. It’s worth taking time to watch her TED talk. (Look up “On Being Wrong” TED talk by Kathryn Schulz). She says that to be a human is to be fundamentally fallible and that even though we mostly understand this, we forget it when we are too invested in being right or when we “trap ourselves in the scary little box of needing to be perfect.” She challenges her audience to see that often what it really feels like to be wrong is to feel like we are right. She, too, encourages us to move beyond our tight little place of rightness and to turn to wonder and ends the talk with the phrase, “I wonder: Maybe I was wrong.”
Educational psychologists use the term “prior learning.” We often base our ideas on what we have learned before. One of the things that can negatively affect future learning is if our prior learning wasn’t accurate (like if you learned that God is an old man with a beard who looks just like Charlton Heston’s Moses, and then someone says that we actually don’t even know if God has a gender). It’s sometimes really difficult to open ourselves to new ways of thinking and knowing. This is why wonder is a very helpful spiritual and practical tool.
A good friend shared this poem with me about staying open, which I think is a part of the process of engaging in wonder. The poem is called “Unfolding Light” and is written by Steve Garnaas-Holmes:
May my ears be opened,
that I may hear others truly,
and listen with loving attentiveness.
May the ears of my spirit be opened,
open to hear your murmuring
in ordinary things.
May my mind be opened
open to what may seem too miraculous,
open to change.
May my heart be opened
in trust and hope open to your grace
around me and within me.
May heaven be opened,
that there be no barrier
between me and the holy.
May all of life be opened,
open to your grace, open to the miracle
that is about to happen.
Singer-songwriter Chris Williamson has a song that carries a similar message. It’s called “Invocation.” Her lyrics go like this:
When in dreaming Sacred comes
Let our eyes be open.
Music frightens Fear away
(Let our ears be open)
Knowledge of the Blood abounds
(Let our hearts be open)
Hatred holds such fearful sway
(Let our minds be open)
Wisdom be with us this day
(Let our souls be open)
Living long where Love abides
(Let our lives be open)
The Beloved Community has an invitation and is challenged with intention: to be aware of ourselves (our thoughts, our ideas, our biases, our limitations, our feelings), and to build our own awareness of one another; being open enough to hear one another’s needs and worries and gifts and challenges. It’s quite complex and it’s as easy as that parishioner saying: “I’m not going to talk mean to other people anymore.” We can help one another to develop communities that are more open and self-aware. Using the tools that are so generously provided within Communities of Practice groups and the Clergy Coaching Initiative among others, we never have to feel alone in this process. May all of our lives be opened to the miracles that are about to happen.
The Rev. Dr. Sandra E. Graham is a retired UCC pastor, psychologist and professor.
Some Questions to Ponder
- How does your own practice of self-reflection inform the work that you do?
- When have you seen someone reflect on their own self-awareness? What impact did it have on you?
- When have you experienced someone being wrong? Were they aware of the possibility that they might be wrong?
- When have you been wrong? What helped you to realize you were wrong?
- Can you think of a time when you had to relearn something because what you had learned before wasn’t accurate? How did you handle it?
- What would your congregation look like if people turned to wonder when in conflict?
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