If you would like to have this month’s packet in full, please join one of our small groups. Contact Rev. John T. Crestwell, Jr. at:

jcrestwell@uuannapolis.org 

What does it mean to be a person of Beloved Community?

Henri Nouwen, the treasured catholic teacher, activist and pastor, once described beloved community as “the place where the person you least want to live with always lives.”

On its surface it seems to be a straightforward reminder not to expect perfection from the communities we join. And not to expect perfection from others. Indeed, it’s a plea to stick with those troublesome others. Forgive them. Accept them. Stay open to the whole of who they are, not just the caricatured sliver of them that makes it easy to write them off.

• Option A: What’s Your Fig Tree Story?
• Option B: Allow a Movie to Become a Meditation
• Option C: When Our Backpacks Get in the Way of the Journey
• Option D: Find Beloved Community in Our Recommended Resources

 Included in this packet:

• Your Questions
• Word Roots & Definitions
• Wise Words
• Music
• Videos & Podcasts
• Articles
• Books
• Movies

To be fully seen by somebody, and then loved anyhow—that is a human offering that can border on miraculous.

~Elizabeth Gilbert

Beloved community is formed not by the eradication of difference but by its affirmation, by each of us claiming the identities and cultural legacies that shape who we are and how we live in the world.

~bell hooks, Killing Rage: Ending Racism