Good People Doing Good Things: Session Six
Our panelists for our last session of Good People Doing Good Things were Karen Carlos, Lupe Carlos, Susan Blythe-Goodman and David Delgado. These beloved members reflected on the theme “the good news…inspires us to act.”
As always, we began with the question, “what is the good news?” Answers were: “I’m alive and breathing,” “I’m still here,” “the world is a breathtakingly beautiful place with good people,” “day to day life is good,” “I keep meeting exceptionally good people,” “a consciousness is rising among the population.”
When asked about inspirational figures in their lives, our panelists reflected names and relationships from family members to people at church to activists like Rachel Corrie, native elders and Latin American theologians. Our panelists shared that some of the lessons of inspiration that have been meaningful to them were things like “spirituality is not separate from all life, it is integrated into everything,” “all are welcome at the table,” “God is truth and love, and the opposite of manipulation and evil that we see in the world.”
Some panelists shared that their family members taught them about being involved in their communities from a young age, going to protests as young as age 7, and learning about power and privilege and disenfranchisement early. Other panelists shared that their big breakthroughs with learning about justice issues and adopting a framework for activism came later in life, through meeting people who patiently and lovingly called them to account for things about which they’d not thought. Together we named that it is good to remember that people of all ages and stages of life can learn and grow and inspire and be inspired. One panelist shared that the lesson from native elders to “go in a good way” makes all the difference: however they approach a situation or a group of people, bring peace and nonjudgemental presence. They reflected that “we become peace” when we practice bringing peace with us wherever we go. One panelist shared that they think about all the ways we can “make little paper cuts to fascism” each day, that no one has to solve the issues of our world all at once or on their own, but if we make small dents each day, that adds up to a lot.
When asked about what to do in times when we feel our “freeze” response kicking in in response to the threats in the world, our panelists shared that they feel like they freeze a lot. What gets them out of that mode, or through? Loved ones close by, music, art, photography, nature’s beauty, gardening, moving their bodies. They reflected that they have to assess “what I want to do based on what I can do.” As they get older, our panelists shared that they’ve seen their roles change in activist movements, some moving into mentor and elder roles. They all shared that the fire and passion for justice is there at all ages, but at times they are tasked with supporting younger or newer people to the movement, combining the younger creative energy with the wisdom of experience.
Our panelists want young people to know that spirituality looks different for different people, and at the core, it’s about how you treat your community, whether you pay it forward, whether you give more than you get. They hope that young people don’t lose hope or give up on movements—and also the church, especially when the Church is easily coopted by empire. They encourage young people to educate themselves about religion and spirituality and theology, so that it makes it harder for evil to hide behind religious language or institutions.
When asked how our church is doing on inspiring people to act, our panelists were realistic. They named that faith without action is nothing, and that sometimes it feels like SFBC can be scattered because we care about so many things. We should ask questions like: “are we giving leadership roles to younger people?” “Are we helping younger/newer people learn and lead?” “Are we feeding the fire for justice?” “How can we turn the potential energy into kinetic energy?” Panelists named the challenges with learning about antiracism as a church, that it is hard to break out of our privileges that cause a separation between “us” and “them,” but that we need to become “us” only.
Like each week in this series, our conversation was wide-ranging, thoughtful, meaningful, challenging, heartfelt and much wisdom was shared. There are many more good people doing good things in our church, and together we can keep that goodness going, through Easter and throughout the year.