A Word From Rev Gordon

February 2024

Beloved Community,

As we enter the second month of the year, known as Black History month in the United States, a shout-out to Carter G. Woodson. Woodson’s devotion to showcasing the contributions of Black Americans bore fruit in 1926 when he launched Negro History Week in the second week of February to coincide with the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. Woodson’s concept was later expanded into Black History Month.

So, during this month I will share as much as I can of Blackness from an American in the United States, and from a global perspective. How does this impact us at SepulvedaUU? How does it affect the ministry we are building together here to have a Jamerican / Louisianan / Harlem guy as your minister?

How do we open ourselves to the Black Community of LA and this Valley, along with being welcoming to any and all peoples?

Dr King’s ideals around the “Beloved Community” give us a guide.

Dr. King defined the beloved community as “a global vision in which all people can share in the wealth of the earth – a world where racism and all forms of discrimination, bigotry, and prejudice will be replaced by an all-inclusive spirit of sisterhood and brotherhood.”

When we are practicing the beloved community, we center love for humanity. Love as accountability. Love as justice. Love as community. Love as belonging.

Dr. King also called for a revolution in American / U.S. values in which an ethos of love informs all aspects of our society; a love that is an undefeatable force for what is good, right, and just. It was to this vision of a nation transformed by love that Dr. King dedicated his life, and it was for this vision that he died. Early in the civil rights struggle, King articulated the goal to which all his work was directed. “…The end is reconciliation, …the creation of the Beloved Community.” It is this type of spirit and this type of love that can transform opponents into friends. It is this type of understanding of goodwill that will transform the deep gloom of the old age into the exuberant gladness of the new age. It is this love that will bring about miracles in the hearts of humanity.

Dear SepulvedaUU, we’ve got work to do. I’m asking you and all friends of this congregation to engage with me in what the UUA calls Beloved Conversations. We may use the program that the UUA offers. It has its pros and cons like any written materials, so here is the ask.

When we decide on what program we are going to run, I am seeking as full participation as is humanly possible. I’ve served this denomination for too long to still be in conversations about the most basic and fundamental of plans to move us forward toward the elusive “Beloved Community”.

Maybe we invite a Black church to dialogue with us? Maybe it is one from each of the historic racial types of the area: Latino/a, Asian, Indigenous, White?

I’m on a mission. My mission has always been about bringing people from diverse communities together. Let’s get to know one another. Let’s break bread together. Let’s unpack our histories and teach, learn and befriend one another. This is my calling. This is my song. Loving all creation all the day long!

So during this month please know I’m guiding us through some uncharted territory. Please know our collective best interests will always be honored. May all of us have the courage to embrace the challenge with which Dr. King left us: “Let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter, but beautiful, struggle for a new world. This is the calling of the sons [and daughters] of God.” This is a UU imperative.

In faith,

Rev Gordon