racial healing

LAND ACKNOWLEDGMENT

We acknowledge the traditional, ancestral, and unceded land of the Abenaki people that is home to our Church building. We honor the Abenaki people who have been living and working on this land from time immemorial. We recognize that colonialism and the oppression of Native peoples current and ongoing, and we commit to building our awareness of our present participation. We give thanks for those who have come before us, honoring the legacy of Vermont’s Indigenous people, the Abenaki People of the Dawn. We are grateful for the care and sharing of this land.

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RACIAL HEALING is central to the vow made at our baptism - “Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being? I will, with God’s help.”

ST. STEPHEN’S RACIAL HEALING COMMITTEE:

Seeks to keep the work of God’s justice before the St. Stephen’s community and strives to be a lens that focuses our church on justice concerns to ensure these concerns are not overlooked.
Acknowledges we live in an unjust society where its benefits - economic, environmental, educational, and more – are not shared equally. We seek to increase awareness of these injustices and their historic roots in our society and in the church.
Seeks to shine light on the privileges that are ours as a predominately White congregation and as people who may have had the benefits of education, income security, food security, family stability, etc. By understanding those privileges, we can learn to use them positively to build a more just society, finding ways to act locally, regionally, and globally.
Recognizes that this is a defining moment in the history of our country and our church as we grow in awareness of racial injustice, not only relating to people who are African American, but also Indigenous people, Latinos, and Asian-Americans, and others who have been marginalized in our society.

HOW WE WORK FOR RACIAL HEALING

SACRED GROUND: A DIALOGUE SERIES ON RACE & FAITH – A nation-wide study program developed by The Episcopal Church, participants take part in small groups or circles that walk through chapters of America’s history of race and racism, while weaving in threads of family story, economic class, and political and regional identity.
BECOMING BELOVED COMMUNITY – Another ministry of the national Episcopal Church, we use this as a roadmap for programs and activities that are necessary to form loving, liberating, and live-giving relationships with each other as we grow to become reconcilers, justice-makers, and healers in the name of Christ.
ST. STEPHEN’S ANNUAL GIVING each February for the Absalom Jones Fund for Episcopal Historically Black Colleges and Universities.
ADULT EDUCATION PROGRAMS at St. Stephen’s frequently offer opportunities to study and discuss themes that open our minds and hearts to racial injustice, to courageous lives that have worked to overcome injustice, and to spiritual traditions of marginalized communities.
We pray without ceasing for racial healing and reconciliation and for the courage to live and work for both.

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RACIAL HEALING RESOURCES

Access to Abenaki Culture - click here for Vermont Organizations and Resources

Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ) – a nationwide organization that has a local chapter in Addison County. You can find the local group on Facebook (SURJ Middlebury). Email Joanna Colwell, joanna.colwell@gmail.com to be added to the SURJ email list.

The Rutland Chapter of the NAACP – a nationwide organization that has a local chapter in Rutland County

Episcopal Diocese of Vermont: Anti-Racism Action

The Episcopal Church: Racial Reconciliation Ministry

Absalom Jones Center for Racial Healing

Look with mercy, O God, upon the people in this land who live with injustice, terror, disease, and death as their constant companions – especially our sisters and brothers who have been marginalized because of racism. Have mercy upon us. Help us to eliminate our cruelty to these neighbors. Strengthen those who spend their lives establishing equal protection of the law and equal opportunities for all. And grant that every one of us may enjoy a fair portion of the riches of this land; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Adapted from the Book of Common Prayer, 1979, page 826

“Share the outrage now, but understand that if you are not having conversations about this with your family, your friends, and strangers you meet in the airport six months from now, then there is no reason for you to expect that anything will have changed with this moment. Silence is too easy.” — Larry Gladney, Professor of Physics, Yale University

Many thanks to Amy Hastings for her three part program. Resources are below:

One of the multitude of comments of a Black writer in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd, this statement (above) challenges us to keep talking about this. This is racism, racial injustice, and the anti-black bias that shaped the history of our country and overtly and more subtly permeates our civic life and institutions today.

As a predominately white congregation in one of the whitest states in the country, we must wrestle with this subject, deeply, fully, and intentionally. To share outrage, yes, but as importantly to listen, learn, and understand. The goals of this Adult Education series are to do all of those. Through video interviews, short readings, and discussion, we’ll go deeper into this and confront the question Martin Luther King asked in his final book, “Where do we go from here?”

“Waking Up White”

(Click on the video and readings to view)

Video: Where Do We Go From Here, Episode 4, The Rev. Sherry Osborn.

Readings: Excerpt from Waking Up White – Debby Irving and White Debt – The New York Times

“The Condition of Black Life is One of Mourning”

Video: Where Do We Go From Here, Episode 1, Steffen Gillom.

Readings: “The Condition of Black Life is One of Mourning,” by Claudia Rankine; “The Purpose of a House,” by Emily Bernard

“Where Do We Go From Here”

Readings: 1) Repentance and Reconciliation – C. Meeks ,” by Catherine Meeks; 2) “Repairing This ‘Era of Abandonment,’” by Liz Theoharis; 3) “Becoming an Incarnated People: An Interview with Keri L. Day”