Growing towards Beloved Community

By Silvana Arevalo

During the first weekend of April, new members, support persons and the New Membership Team gathered on the blooming grounds of the Mercy Center in Burlingame, California, for our New Membership Gathering. Dr. Roxy Manning, author of How to Have Antiracist Conversations: Embracing Our Full Humanity to Challenge White Supremacy and The Antiracist Heart: A Self-Compassion and Activism Handbook, led and facilitated a workshop on “Supporting Individual and Social Transformation Toward Beloved Community.” For me, the workshop was on the heels of our virtual Mercy Life Gathering focusing on moving from egocentrism and hierarchical divisions to ecocentrism, universal value, care and interdependence. Dr. Manning’s workshop was providential, further unfolding of the invitation to growing towards Beloved Community: recognizing our interdependence, fostering authentic relationships and pursuing social justice.  

With tenderness, authenticity and wisdom, Dr. Manning shared approaches to nonviolent communication for dismantling oppression and to build a world of reconciliation, redemption and transformative love. As Dr. Manning notes in her book, we may long to create such a world, but we often lack the communication and relational skills to do so. She shared paths for how to approach the necessary dialogues for reconciliation and transformation, beginning with our own inner work.  

There was much to reflect upon, including our internalized white supremacy ideology and inner blocks to authentic dialogue and connection, like dualistic thinking and the simplistic categorization of people (i.e. “that person/group is good/evil”, “us” vs. “them”).  A fundamental belief in nonviolent communication is that human behavior is motivated by the same universal, essential needs.  

Through different exercises during the workshop, Dr. Manning invited us to connect with our physical, emotional, psychological, social and spiritual needs (like our need for connection, belonging, care, understanding, justice, collective transformation and more) and to become aware of our emotions when these needs are met and not met. From this self-awareness, when our needs and/or the needs of others are not being met, we can engage in dialogue with self-compassion and empathy, promoting connection and mutual understanding through warm, genuine curiosity and care, instead of judgment and blame. We can work together to find creative solutions that meet the needs of all.  

Our final exercises shifted to social change as we divided into different groups according to our Mercy Critical Concerns. We considered the people most impacted, the challenges and harm they are experiencing, and what they would identify as their most important needs. We connected with our own grief for their unmet needs. We considered strategies for responding to involuntary harm, including specific examples and ways that we can draw attention to and raise awareness, identifying those in power with regards to the harm, and some strategies that might bring them to dialogues.  We ended with considering our personal faith and commitment to nonviolence and our willingness to bear the cost.