Tragedy and Grace
This is written with permission of the daughter of Sha-Von. Last year, my church started a journey of more actively pursuing racial justice. After so much struggle in the Twin Cities, we could not turn our eyes away any longer. As a step in this journey, the staff and executive team was asked to make progress in our ability to adapt to diverse cultures, backgrounds, and experiences, and to understand more deeply the biases operating in us. I remember meeting one-on-one with our consultant. I found myself saying to him over and over, “I feel as if I know what I need to do in my head, but I don’t intentionally create space and time to interact with the diversity around me. I’m scared. I'm a perfectionist. And I can’t be perfect at this. I’m worried that my interactions could create harm. I don’t want to be that person. So I just withdraw.” That was last spring. And I didn’t make any steps. I’ve let my accountability partner down. Then June came,