Minister's Musing

Rev. Mark Ward
Unitarian Universalist Church of Asheville

April 2008

Our national discussion on race took a fascinating turn last week when Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama addressed the subject in a speech in Philadelphia. Drawn in by criticism of the angry words of his pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama responded with what was one of the most incisive commentaries I’ve ever heard on this tangled and complex state of affairs. For all Americans, whether Democrat or Republican, it was a great opportunity to hear from a man who, as the son of an African man and white woman, married to an African-American women whose heritage includes slaves and slaveholders, embodies the many conflicts and contradictions that all of us live with.

What especially encouraged me from Obama’s remarks were his recognition of the struggles, pain and anger that wrestling with race creates for everyone, while at the same time he encouraged all of us to stay in the game and work through it. Neither black anger nor white anger is a solution to the problem, but each is real. We need to be understanding of each other’s experiences even when we don’t agree with others’ conclusions. We can’t disown each other. Ultimately, there is no other. All of us are part of the warp and weft of humanity. But at the same time we need to have this conversation, all of us, about what race means to us and its consequences for all of our lives and our society. Whatever Obama’s future may be, I am grateful to him for raising this topic in such a thoughtful and compassionate way.

Coming to terms with the consequences of race is part of our Social Justice work at this church. We hosted Building Bridges last fall as a way of continuing the conversation here and in our wider community, and a newly formed task force will be exploring in the coming months how we as a church think about and respond to the ongoing challenges of living in a multicultural world.

Last weekend I attended a worship service at a UUA conference for large churches that celebrated the work of Rev. Marjorie Bowens-Wheatley, an African-American UU minister who died last year. Marjorie was deeply involved in our association, but she may be best known as the author of “A Litany of Restoration,” #576 in our hymnal. The litany says that as we strive to build community, “if you are black and I am white…male and female…old and young” and so on, “it will not matter.” Rather, “if we join spirits as brothers and sisters, the pain of our aloneness will be lessened, and that does matter.” Let us all join in that work.