SPIRITUAL GUIDANCE:

The Rev. John Thomas, president and general minister of the United Church of Christ, recently invited all UCC churches to engage in sacred conversation about race.

The impetus came after the recent media coverage given to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama’s pastor and now-retired pastor of Trinity UCC in Chicago. This conversation, though, is bigger than they, and one we as a nation aren’t comfortable having. Last Sunday, though, Fairview Community Church joined congregations across the U.S. in an attempt to speak and listen with open hearts.

As a white woman preaching to a predominantly white congregation, this was/is a challenge. How do those who come from a place of power speak about race, when conversations about race are often really conversations about power?

There was a time when it seemed we tried to “not see race.” However, that ended up forcing us into a melting pot — melting away our differences and merging us all into the same color. Whether we like it or not, the color of assimilation has been white. The melting pot metaphor cannot work because it assumes we have to come out looking, acting, believing, thinking the same way.

To begin a conversation, we have to see one another for who we are — that means to see ourselves as well. We cannot pretend that we’re all the same. That would make for a bland salad and an inauthentic conversation.

We have to step out into vulnerable territory and be willing to hear things about ourselves we may not be comfortable with, and listen to others tell stories they may be uncomfortable telling.

As Christians celebrate the season of Pentecost, we honor a day when people were able to communicate. I hope this conversation will initiate a Pentecostal experience, allowing us to really hear one another — to listen with new ears, to see with new eyes — to connect with open hearts.

Sarah Halverson is the reverend of Fairview Community Church.