13 Jul With This Light

Dear Westwood Church family,

Every summer in The Loft – well, every summer since I have been here! – we spend a few months reflecting on one of the four value-pillars that inform the life of our worship community. Those values are Compassion, Conversation, Belonging, and Decolonization, and we are focusing on Belonging this year. Using the work of bell hooks as an interlocutor, the questions that will guide our sermon series are thus: In a world that rewards individualism, how valuable is community; given the effort required to develop meaningful relationships, what is the value of finding and creating spaces to which we belong?

I believe there is significant value in creating a culture of belonging. This belief is born out of my reading of the Hebrew Bible and especially the gospels, where the importance of belonging is evident in the life of Jesus, who had a community that he belonged to, what hooks refers to as a homeplace where he was loved just for being himself. She defines a homeplace as “a safe place where people can affirm one another and by doing so heal” from the wounds inflicted upon us and members of our community by the dehumanizing traumas of racism, sexism, classism, ableism, and queer hatred, to name a few.

Healing begins when we see ourselves as loved by God and can unconditionally love ourselves. Only from this posture of wholeness and security that is built upon a foundation of love can we begin creating communities of belonging.

Over the next few Sundays, we will discuss what it looks like to practice creating a space of belonging both within and outside of Westwood UMC. This Sunday, I will speak with Kathleen Rogers, a member of our church and an Impact Producer for GSD Group, about a documentary she has been involved with entitled With This Light. This movie profiles the life of Sister Maria Rosa Leggol, who, for over 70 years, helped over 87,000 Honduran children escape poverty and fortified her legacy as an activist and visionary. Sister Maria was committed to creating spaces where all children, orphaned, abandoned, or otherwise, could know they belonged.

The movie premiere will be on August 2nd at the Museum of Tolerance, and Kathleen has graciously extended an invitation to the WUMC community! If you are interested, you can click here to reserve your place. Seating is limited, so please register for tickets soon if you want to attend the film screening and the following discussion panel.

Love and Solidarity,
Rev. Dr. Carter