A Team to Explore Racial Healing, Justice, & Reconciliation
Dear friends and members of St. Matt's.
It was so good to see so many of you at our Parish Update on Sunday! Thank you so much to everyone who came to be a part of this conversation. These updates are a part of our commitment to transparency and a desire to keep you up to date on all the good things happening at St. Matt's! If you missed it, I have shared the recording of our conversation with a few folks who weren't able to be present, so if you couldn't join us but want to watch what happened, just send me a note.
We shared quite a bit of information on Sunday, much of which will continue to unfold in our e-news and on our website over the next few weeks. For today, there's just one piece of this that I want to pull out for you in case you missed it.
As you know, in the month of August we read two books together, Waking Up White and Stand Your Ground. A group of us met to discuss these books, to learn together, to share stories. And then we gathered on September 6th to explore what next steps might look like for our community. It was clear in that conversation on the 6th that the experience of learning together had been meaningful and transformational for this community of learners. And there was present in the group a desire to keep going, to keep learning, to learn how to build justice together. I was really struck by the good work of this group, by their willingness to engage so faithfully, and by their desire to continue to sort out what comes next.
What comes next will be a team that works with me to determine next steps, new ways of learning, new points of connection, new possibilities for action. If you think you might be called to be a part of these conversations, a part of this team, please be in touch with me. I expect we'll meet in the first part of October to explore concrete next steps. And if you are being called to be a part of this good and holy work, I hope you'll join us. This is certainly one way to live out the path of love and justice to which Jesus calls us. This is Gospel work, grounded in the love of God that insists all people are beloved.
As I said on Sunday at the Update, it continues to be a privilege to be your Priest and your Rector. There are so many good things ahead of us in this next season. And I am so looking forward to continuing this journey with you. We have so much ahead of us, and even more that God has in store that we haven't discovered yet. So join us tonight for Compline, tomorrow night for Evening Prayer. And join in especially on Sunday as our program year kicks off with St. Matthew's Day and another special surprise or two for this start of the year. Until then, God bless you and keep you.
Faithfully,
--Marissa +
Tags: Welcome from the Rector