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Many of us have multiracial families, and family members from marginalized and oppressed identities.  How do we celebrate, support, advocate for and protect our Beloved?  

Here is the text from this sermon by Rev. Dr. Kate R. Walker
(permission to share granted with proper attribution)

Five years ago, this week, my family welcomed New Life!
My husband and I met her in person, one week after her first breath.
A new granddaughter landed, ever so softly into our hearts and souls.
A GRAND – daughter!
A seed of new life, reaching out to become, to unfold,
wings still tucked, but perhaps can touch the sky,
one day.
She is our future.
She can fly if she wants to, but she must believe in herself.
If she finds that sweet spot of happiness and self-love,
she, or perhaps, they or he,
life expanding toward a radiant liberated being.
We want her to live fully, connected, affirmed.

Don’t think me naïve, not for a moment.
Someone, many someone’s ARE going to tell her she’s not enough.
Cultural messages, body language, harsh words,
patronizing tones from pale skinned, well-meaning women like me,
claiming liberal positions from safety and security,
men who want to use her body, sell it, capitalize on it.

She’s going to be told, implicitly and explicitly,
her body does not belong to her.

She is going to find out that others don’t love her body,
and her mind is not good enough.
Want to know how I know this, why am I so damn sure?
Because my beautiful granddaughter
does not have that high value of perfect pale skin.
She is covered in gorgeous Black and Brown tones of history.
She carries the narrative of oppression and plunder.
It is in her DNA.
She cannot ever undo, no delete button, no reverse, no stop.
Her story is our country’s story, our human story,
enmeshed with usury of the other.
Founded upon stolen Black and Brown bodies.

She is loved! Don’t misunderstand me!
Our family loves her!
Her parents; ha, red-headed pale Irish-rooted dad,
brilliant, dark-haired mom, with her Italian genes.
Goodness, both parents are brilliant cooks.
Oh, our granddaughter IS fed – body and spirit!
Covered in a powerful catholic love by a world community,
an unconditional love!
She is loved because she is a radiant being!
Born under the stars and galaxies, she is an energy burst,
may change the world, can change the world.

But my view of reality, is one fueled,
bites of anger, fear, betrayal and deep anguish for her.
If there is hope for me to feel that powerful
bioenergetic force, animating, connecting with my granddaughter?

If there is hope for me to make that connection happen
with her, for me to feel her palpable radiance?
If I want to truly celebrate her DNA, her story, her narrative, her existence,
then, I need to do some unlearning.
If I want to help protect her existence, her beautiful body, her future
yet to unfold, just now peaking at 5 years,
then I need to do some serious unpacking.

Truth is, this unlearning, unpacking,
not just for my granddaughter,
it’s also for my Chinese immigrant sister-in-law,
my Chinese American niece and nephew.
Oh my, how I love them as well.
Unlearning is for my stepmother’s Latina wife,
full of compassion and tenderness.

And for ALL those who come under my care as a Minister of Love.

Because of my powerful love and fear,
I do not speak their names out loud in this public space.
To celebrate and protect, their names are silent.

I have work to do, I suspect we all do.

I’ve been taught poison, wrongs, barriers, myths
I’ve been lost in the hall of confusing mirrors,
fed falsehoods of mis-beliefs based on usury values,
dismissal, invisible, minimal lives.
Brutal leaders preaching ego-driven visions

Where I and thou can NEVER connect.

Here is what I am unlearning:
Here are myths I need to dismantle.

Unlearn:
•Intellectual mastery leads to connection.
Nope, never going to happen without the heart.
BIG white, privileged-power play. BIG!

Unlearn:

“I have all the answers.”
Not so much.
This is another white, power-privileged lie,
valuing white authority, embedded with power.
Truly, humility is the foundation of intimacy.

Unlearn:
•Power equals domination.
This is pure violence.
Domination is toxic, poisons the heart, murders the mind.
Power must be shared, transparent, given away, liberated!

Unlearn:
•Powerful art always comes from professional artists.
What?! Look and listen to the city streets, side of buildings, under the bridge.
Inside homes, small hidden studios of the heart,
Simmering, ready to emerge from young and old souls.

Unlearn:
•The US Constitution offers equal protection for all people.
Those authors, the ones we built monuments for,
all white, cis-gendered men,
wrote for other white, cis-gendered men.
“We the people” does not equal ALL the people.
Look inside the prisons. You’ll see.

Unpack this one:
•There are red states, and there are blue states.
Another false binary!
All states are green.
Not for money, you cynic.
For life, green for trees, and stems of life
claiming oxygen and water.

Unpack this:
•Police are for public safety.
Maybe for me, light-skinned, able-bodied woman.
From the beginning, at the foundation of slavery,
police created to enforce systems of restriction, punishment,
maintain hierarchy,
for privileged white landowners.
Victims too often blamed instead of protected,
The innocent – guilty or murdered –
dangerous for People of Color, deadly!
Look inside the prisons. You’ll see.

Unlearn:

“Everything will be all right.”
Said by well meaning, well intentioned,
wanting to ease their own pain.
Truth of it, ALL of us, pain IS inevitable.
Deeper truth: suffering is optional.
Choices, yours, mine and theirs, determines the impact.
Suffering need not exist.

Unpack, lean into:
•Silence is golden.
Sometimes, to listen is the gift,
For our Black, Brown, Asian, Latinx, LGBTQIA, non-binary, disabled
siblings, all, to listen can save a life.
Silence can also kill.
Know the difference!

Unravel:
•Disarm the enemy on the battlefield.
Ok, but, better still, disarm the heart.
No need for holes in the body, blood on the ground.
Compassion is the most powerful force in the universe,
The equalizer, the radical egalitarian, humanizer.
Let compassion rule the heart and field.

Unpack:
•Just put out a “Welcome” sign.
Hospitality requires to invite the “Radical.”
A radical change in the tight grip of Culture.
All the marginalized, all the oppressed,

want to know they are welcomed for who they are.
Given space, affirmation to come into their full being,
full potential to live!

Unlearn this:
•Avoid discomfort.
So sorry, not sorry.
Discomfort is a powerful teacher.
The ONLY time change can happen.
Comfort restricts, maintains peace for me, not you,
or the oppressed.
Guilt, shame, painful indicators
something amiss, something gone wrong.
Check the interior dear one, then set aside, invite
compassion, forgiveness, reconciliation,
ask what is going on inside the heart?

Unlearn:
•Vulnerability is weakness.
This is a big one.
Strong is not always better.
Flexibility brings strength.
History, personal experience,
feed truth speakers,
reminding us again, and again.
Strength is built upon true self-love and acceptance,
Celebration of our essential being!!!
Vulnerability is open door to connection heart to heart.

One last unlearning (for this moment):

•Outrage is the end point.
Outrage is only a beginning.
A point of transformation.
A tipping point in a long journey.
I can show you my outrage my dear people.
I can show you my anger and pain.
I can preach strong, angry words, filled with images,
crushed ideas, lives destroyed,
communities burning,
bodies on the ground, suffocating.
Under, always, under brutal, ancient myths
written by the empty and hungry,
those DESPERATE for human connection.
In the hall of mirrors, they see only their disfigured image.
Empty, hungry vessels, seeking affirmation without security.
Grasping, gasping for power over, always over,
then claim their story as the best, the only story.
Leads only to narratives of addiction and brokenness.

Danger my friends.
Our Beloved family, friends, neighbors and strangers
Are in danger.
Lives, homes, careers, health.
Immigrants without the light skin of safe passage,
need our help; witnesses, advocates, interventionists.

Urgency at my heals,

I am unlearning my friends. I am unlearning fast.
Faux history, crushing cultural norms, ancient false narratives.
Truth is buried but not lost.
Must keep digging.
Cannot stop.

Here is what motivates me:
I know I will find myself in you.
I will find myself in my beautiful multi-racial family.
I will find the universe, holy and precious in connection.
Together we hold sacred space, sacred LOVE.

This is the web of life.
I cannot, we cannot exist without each other.
Seek connection, create radical hospitality,
because too often we’ve severed our connections.
Someone, many someone’s taught us,
Early in life,
we are not worthy, not good enough.
Cultural messages, body language.
Patronizing tones from well-meaning, good folx
Severed our sacred connections.
And we believed them!!

Unlearn this my people.
Unlearn the myths,
Unlearn the lies
Unlearn the millions of stories, myths,
hidden, and in plain sight.

Unlearn that you are not worthy!
Feel outrage, sure, anger, yes, pain, yes!
Feel the discomfort!
Tap into your deepest heart, find courage.
Courage to continue this unfolding of life,
courage to stay in the struggle, we have traveled far!
We have a long way to go.
We have lives to save, mouths to feed and bodies to house.

Unlearn that you, sitting in stately pews,
comfortable homes,
food in your cupboard,
have no power to change the world.
Unlearn this!
You can challenge the myths that perpetuate suffering.
You can speak.
Find family, friends, stranger.
Speak, act, share your voice!
Care with that heart of yours!
Oppression must end.

For all the Beloved in our lives.
We must emerge out of our relearning.
That is how we celebrate, protect and love our multi-racial, multi bodied families

Our love must reach out!! Must reach out toward all, for there is no other way.

May it be so. Amen. Asé.