In their book Ethics and Spiritual Care,  Karen Lebacqz and Joseph Driskill write about four dimensions of spirituality, 
the intra-personal - the spirituality we have within
the interpersonal - the spirituality of our close relationships 
the spirituality of religious community -
which includes mutual accountability
and the spirituality of our culture, our nation, and our world.

Karen Lebacqz and Joseph Driskill,
use racism as the example of how the wider world -
cultural norms and beliefs, can affect our spirits.
Our abolitionist Unitarian and Universalist ancestors
said slavery caused great suffering 
to human beings treated as property
and distorted the spirits of all 
who benefited from that suffering.
If we are to have whole and healthy spiritual lives
we must bring healing to the wounds of centuries of racism.

To do this we must look first within ourselves,
taking stock of how racism affects us individually.
How can we heal those inner, psychic wounds?
What balm can we apply to heal the sin-sickness of racism?
Those of us are who are white need to examine ourselves.
I say this not to induce shame, which leaves us helpless,
but to help us find ways we can remove the distortions
racism causes in the core of who we are, 
so we can be more whole
and from that wholeness help others 
also become more whole.

Next we need to look at how racism affects
our relationships with those close to us.
Do we have friends, family members, 
partners from other races? If not, why not?
If so, are we able to talk with each other about race
or does it just sit there, unacknowledged?
How does racism affect our close relationships?
How can we heal any wounds racism has caused
between us and others we love and care about?

Then we can consider how racism may affect us
in this beloved community.  Do people of color feel
a part of this community, or apart from this community?
Do they ever feel alienated because of some ways 
we who are white act that perpetuate racism 
but which we have not yet learned to see.
Are there ways for people of color to speak up 
when this happens?
If they do that, how can they feel heard, 
seen, and understood?
How can any harm be healed?  
How can reconciliation happen?
How do we change our ways of being 
so that it happens no more?

Radiating out into our town, our region, 
our state and nation, and our world 
how does racism affect us? 
 Where do we see its worst effects?  
I say this not to condemn anyone or any group of people.
Condemnation of people makes them “other” 
in the same way racism does, 
and like racism can lead us to hate them.

Howard Thurman writes about hate in this book 
Jesus and the Disinherited.
He writes about the hatred of the oppressor for the oppressed,
and about the hatred of the oppressed for the oppressor.
He says hating the oppressor can be a motivating force
that seems to serve a creative function - 
it care drive us to action
but ultimately, he writes,
hatred destroys the core of the life of the one who hates.
It blinds us to valuing the other and even ourselves.
It robs us of our creativity 
and the possibility of positive action.

Hatred, Thurman writes, “bears deadly and bitter fruit.”
We do not need to hate people in order to dismantle racism.
In fact, it’s better if we do not succumb to hate.
None of us is as bad as our worst choice in life,
our worst thought, our worst word, our worst action.
And all of us are capable of both bad and good.

The events in Ferguson are only part of what began stirring
my desire to do something about racism.
I am doing chaplaincy training on a trauma unit.
On that unit I see victims of other kinds of hate - 
young men and women of color
with bullet holes and stab wounds.

And yes that hate comes partly from
gang violence and turf wars,
but let’s be clear that this violence stems from 
the violence of poverty,
the violence of generations of trauma
that keep perpetuating violence,
it comes from the violence of despair.
And it makes me angry. 

I imagine the pain of the mothers 
of sons and daughters close in age to my own son.
I suspect that those who shot or stabbed
may never be found or prosecuted.
I know that those who caused the poverty,
who allowed drugs to take over those neighborhoods
then created a war on drugs leading to mass incarceration,
in effect punishing people for poverty,
that those who created these multiple 
systems of oppression will never, ever be brought to justice.
And I feel angry and I know it as a holy anger
but I do not want to let it become hatred or despair.

Racism is old, it is deep and it is wide as are its wounds.
It seems too large a thing for us to do anything about.
Some think racism is a permanent part of American culture
but to me that statement sounds like despair - 
the spiritual illness that comes from a lack of hope.
How do we counter despair? How do we restore hope?

I like to quote a beloved mentor who says
“There is no hope apart from relationship.”
So to me it seems the way to address despair, to nurture hope,
The way to address racism in our lives, 
in our relationships, in our church,
in our town, our region, our commonwealth, 
our nation, and world
is by building relationships, 
starting close in and radiating out.

And so it seems to me that I need, 
and if you’re with me, WE need to build relationships 
like those fostered in the Ten Point Coalition -
relationships between clergy, 
police officers, and communities of color.
A minister friend did an internship there.
They send two clergy members and two police officers
together into these communities
fractured by racism, poverty and violence,
in order to build relationships - reaching out to youth,
trying to help them escape the prison of hatred, 
the prison of fear, and the prison of poverty, 
the prison of violence, the prison of despair.
Fostering these relationships 
generate hope for those communities
and at the same time helps the police officers
escape those same prisons.

So I want to begin working in my own community
to build relationships across lines of role, race and privilege
that can help to dismantle racism and and injustice.
I believe that I (and we, if you’re with me) should consider
how we might use whatever power and our privilege
we have to dismantle the systems
that give privileges that really ought to be rights. 
Safety. Sufficiency. Dignity. Freedom.

Karen Lebacqz says we know we are using our power ethically
when it liberates others, and I would add, 
when we use our power this way it also liberates us.
As Martin Luther King Jr. said, 
"We cannot be who we ought to be 
until others can be what they ought to be.
And they cannot be what they ought to be 
until we are who we ought to be."
Someone needs to start that positive cycle 
and I’m ready. If you are, join me.

We can use the inescapable network of mutuality,
building relationships that strengthen that network
generating the hope that drives out despair,
healing wounds that are old, broad and deep,
creating the love that can conquer hate
that can help us overcome, and lead us to the freedom land.
Come stand with me.  Come hope with me. Come sing with me.

Dialogue on Racial Identity  by David Concepcion and Rev. Tess Baumberger

David and I presented this during a worship service in honor of Martin Luther King Jr., on January 18th 2015.  David has also posted this on his blog

David:
I am adopted and claim all the nationalities of all my parents.
I am Colombian, African, some South American Indian, 
Puerto Rican, and Jewish of Russian/Polish descent. 
Some of these are known and sure, 
others are best assessments from forms I can gather.
Like many people of color, I can only trace my ancestry so far 
before the trail runs cold.

Tess:
I am European-American. 
I have lived my whole life on land wrested from American Indians.
My ancestors came from Switzerland, Germany, 
Ireland, France, England, and Bohemia.
My love of order may come from my German and Swiss roots, 
along with sauerkraut and sausage my grandpa Lahr made.
My dad loved to tell stories about his childhood -
that, his love of singing, and his sense of humor I think comes from the Irish.
I’m not sure where French and English come in 
but my Bohemian grandmother loved to tease, play games and make kolaches.
If I want to I can trace all these lines back several generations.

David:
I am a Native New Yorker born and bred 
from 25 years in three of the five boroughs of the city.
My parents—my father a Catholic and my mother a Jew--
married in a Unitarian Church and I was raised in the religion all my life,  a rarity in this denomination.
I went to a private Quaker school for grade school and a public art school for high school. 

Tess:
I grew up on a a family farm in eastern South Dakota.
I was raised Catholic and attended Catholic schools through high school.  
One of my father’s brothers was a Benedictine priest, 
and one of this sisters was a Benedictine nun.
I discovered Unitarian Universalism when I was 32 years old.

David:
My parents were both highly educated people. 
My father had a Doctorate in Romance Languages 
and was tenured at Queens College where he taught 
in the Romance Languages department, 
mainly Portuguese, for most of his adult life. 
My mother got her Masters of Divinity in Religious Philosophy 
from Union Theological Seminary, 
but never used her degree in her career. 
She worked in rape crisis centers in the 1970s, 
for the New York Board of Health in the 1980s 
and eventually municipal union District 37 from where she retired. 
My younger sister, also adopted, 
is the only sibling I have 
and the only one of the nuclear family without a college degree.
I myself have two degrees—a Bachelor's and a Masters--
and have taught adult education ed at colleges. 
But you would never know this by my appearance. 

Tess:
My father was a farmer with an eighth grade education,
who worked as a share-cropper before finally buying his own land and who loved classical music.
My mother was a legal secretary who kept the books for our farm and who loved opera and literature.
My older sisters were the first in my family to go to college,
one majoring in art (she introduced me to public television) 
and the other in English history and literature 
(she introduced me to George Elliot and Virginia Woolf).
The artist now works at Home Depot, the historian at Walmart.
My brothers did not go to college - one drives truck
and the other works in construction. They are both adopted.
My youngest brother is a quarter Oglala Sioux, now we say Lakota.
My niece’s father was from the Crow Creek tribe of the Lakota nation.
There is some racial diversity in my family 
you cannot see by looking at my face.
I left my homeland to go to college and now have four degrees 
a bachelor’s, masters and doctorate in research psychology
and a masters of divinity.

David:
I am a product of 1970s and 80s New York culture and politics, 
of latch key kids, of divorced parents, of too much TV, 
of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, 
of the changeover from comic books to Graphic Novels, 
of AIDS marches and homeless protests, 
of worn down Beatles albums and Broadway soundtracks. 
My upbringing was middle class and somewhat fortunate, 
but because of my skin color it can never be called privileged. 
I know this because when I look at the records of my birth parents--
both Colombian—they listed themselves as “White”; 
yet when I look at my hands, I know they were not. 
They considered themselves white because in that society, 
you are “less than” if you are colored. 
But when my mother came here to put me up for adoption, 
she was noted as Hispanic. 

Tess:
I am a product of a 1960s and 70s family farm culture 
that has faded from the Northern Great Plains.
We had a close network of neighbors who helped each other through crises.
Both of my parents worked, my siblings and I did from a very young age.
Even so, we squeezed in lots of television time.  
There I saw the first man walk on the moon, Nixon resign from office.
I was born during the Civil Rights era,
during the time of Vietnam, Women’s Lib, and the Cold War.
My parents taught us we are all God’s children, equal in God’s sight.
Growing up female and working class,
I have a mix of privilege and unprivilege
but I realize now that any privilege I lost
by being born female is tiny compared to
the privilege I have because of being born white.

(Note: the following was inspired and partly adapted from Peggy McIntosh’s wonderful paper White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack)

David: Because I am a person of color: While I know I've always been hired based on my ability, I can never be 100% sure ethnicity was a consideration.

Tess:  Because I am white: if I want to rent or purchase a home in a neighborhood I can afford, I can do that without any problem and  assume the neighbors will be friendly or neutral 
David:  While I know I've never not been chosen for a job because of my race, I can never be 100% sure. 

Tess: When I turn on television or watch a movie I can be fairly sure that a) my race will be represented and b) portrayed fairly 

David: When asked to speak publicly, I know it will be based on my ability and knowledge, but I can never be 100% sure if it's not to speak on behalf of my entire race.

Tess: I can see people of my race upheld in ads, greeting cards, toys, makeup and nylons, in school curricula and standardized tests, in movies, television, and art

David: I have been followed around by security in store in a neighborhood I lived in for years. 

Tess: A variety of career paths are open to me. I don’t have to worry about whether my race will prevent me from following my dreams

David: People automatically assume I speak Spanish (I don't and know very little of it)

Tess:  People won’t assume I’m a janitor (happened to an African American friend of mine while she was at a professional conference)

David: I still struggle to find quality representations of my life in TV, movies, and entertainment. 

Tess: If my kid acts up in school it won’t be attributed to his race.

David: When talking one-on-one about influences on my art, people are surprised when not every person mentioned is of color. 

Tess:  If  my child should ever be arrested and found guilty of a crime, he is likely to find legal representation, and receive a fair trial and fair sentence.

David: When talking in a group about influences on my art, I have to include artists of color because they will otherwise not be represented or recognized. 

Tess: I most likely will never be asked to speak on behalf of my entire race.

David:  I have to teach my daughter to be aware of how systemic racism can affect her in addition to how gender inequality can affect her, both for her own protection.

Tess: I won’t be harassed if I try to vote, no matter where I live.

David:  I do not always feel “normal” in the usual walks of public life, institutional and social.

Tess:  Nothing less than desirable in the way I dress or act will be ascribed to my race.

David:
There are great things about my heritage and culture to show, 
but not given the privilege to accept or reject all the negative aspects of them—deserved or undeserved. 

I am multi-racial and multi-ethnic, and racism affects my spirit.

Tess:
There are things I love about my heritage,
I have privileges that have more to do with this history of race in America than they have to do with who I am or how I want to be in the world, privileges I would reject if I could but can’t because they are built into the system and have infiltrated our culture.

I am white. I am European American, and racism affects my spirit.