Registration for Spring Term 2021: February 1 – 26, 2021

Beloved Conversations—the signature offering of The Fahs Collaborative at Meadville Lombard Theological School—is a program for Unitarian Universalists seeking to embody racial justice as a spiritual practice. In Beloved Conversations, we are here to heal the impact of racism on our lives, in order to get free together.

In Fall 2020, we launched a newly reimagined and redesigned Beloved Conversations as an online program. Over 1,200 learners participated in the first “Within” phase. We are so excited to continue, and would like you to join us!

Phases

Beloved Conversations Virtual will be released in three phases:

WITHIN (the individual, personal work we each need to do), launched in Fall 2020
AMONG (the institutional, systemic change needed in our congregations), planned launch in Fall 2021
BEYOND (the work outside our congregations, with our local communities), planned launch in Fall 2022

The first phase “Within” focuses on the internal work that each of us needs to do, as we engage personal exploration of race and our work for racial justice. This work is different for white folks and for Black, Indigenous, People of Color, and other racially targeted groups (BIPOC+)* and “Within” phase will be done entirely in race-based caucuses/courses.

An invitation to BIPOC+* to the Gathering Our Selves course

BIPOC+ work has been a neglected conversation, as much anti-racism work has been focused on the learning needs of white folks. For those of us who identify as BIPOC+, we recognize the need to understand the impact of racism in our lives— particularly our spiritual lives—and the choices we have made to survive.

In this curriculum, we will look at issues such as how and why Unitarian Universalist values matter to us, how race has shaped our personal and communal lives, the dynamics of why and how we stay in the faith, and what a theology for BIPOC+ in a white-dominated society might look like.

Gathering Our Selves will run in two cohorts: one for people who have completed the Fall Term and one for those who are new to the program in the Spring. The two cohorts will have opportunities to come together for worship and connection.

An invitation to white folks to the Un/Learning for Liberation course

Wherever we white folks are on the journey toward collective liberation—whether you are just waking up to systemic racial injustice or your heart has been breaking for a long time—you are invited to join us for Un/Learning for Liberation. We will explore within ourselves as individual white people, within our family and community systems, and within the system of whiteness, which has impacted and limited our ability to truly be present with and connected to ourselves and our siblings of color. But we get to choose to be and do differently. Beginning within ourselves.

This is a space for justice-making and spiritual formation, a place where we honor complexity, nuance, and grace. We will bear witness to one another as we engage a process of introspection, honest reflection, and challenge what we always thought we knew or were too afraid or embarrassed to ask. We will learn together about how this system has impacted us and dis-connected us from ourselves and our BIPOC+ kin and how it was implanted in us without our consent. And we will unlearn some of our deeply ingrained habits of perception, thought, and behavior, while practicing spiritual skills for humility, resistance, and solidarity.

Un/Learning for Liberation will run in one cohort, regardless of folks’ previous participation in the program. Content will be different in Spring than in the Fall Term.

More Information at Our Website

Go to meadville.edu/beloved to read more about the program. In the Beloved Conversations Virtual section of our website, you can find:

The link to the registration page will be made available on February 1 and stay open until February 26.

Questions?

Please check out our website at
meadville.edu/beloved
or contact us at
BelovedConversations@meadville.edu

We hope you can join us!
Beloved Conversations Design Team

First Unitarian Universalist Church of Berks County