The Reverend Carol McKinley is a community minister affiliated with the Olympia Unitarian Universalist Congregation, where she coordinates its Faith in Action Ministry. Currently she is a member of the PNWD Board of Directors and the district’s Healthy Congregations Team.
For more than 20 years Unitarian Universalists have been engaged with the program, A Journey toward Wholeness, examining ways to live our commitment to beloved community by developing and practicing better anti-racist and multicultural identities within and beyond our congregations. Are we there yet?
In 1963, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King said, “Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted.” Today, as then, we would do well to heed his words and continue to be maladjusted to poverty, racism, and violence.
Even as many in the United States experience fear and uncertainty for their own future and the future of this country, each of us is called to speak out, demanding that this nation continue to be a land where principles of justice, equity and compassion will overcome the upsurge of hate crimes, divisiveness, and xenophobia we are experiencing. Together, we can help shape the future of our communities, and the nation.
The writer Parker Palmer describes democracy as “a nonstop experiment in the strength and weakness of our political institutions, our local communities, and the human heart.” During this season of heated rhetoric, we are challenged to look for ways to turn conflict into the energy of creativity, and to see tension as an invitation to work for the common good.
