Message from Senior Minister Rev. Nancy Taylor

Dear Old South Church in Boston,

The round the clock reports of the murders of black men, of LGBTQ people, and now of police is heartbreaking and heartrending, traumatizing and paralyzing. The rifts and gulfs, the chasms and canyons between white and black, gay and straight, police and civilian are undoing us.

Church: can we come together to hug each other? Listen to and hear each other? Rage? Pray? Cry? Mourn?

On Sunday, July 10th, Rev. John Edgerton will preach into this heartbreaking season.

Also on Sunday at 12:15 pm (G)RACE TALKS will host an Old South Church Town Hall on Race. Will you join us?

We cannot remain silent. We cannot fail each other. Lives are at stake. Our country is at stake.

At an interracial, interfaith news conference held Friday afternoon by Boston area clergy at historic Twelfth Baptist Church I was asked to offer a prayer. At the microphone I said I was sick and tired of praying. Sick and tired of moments of silence. Sick and tired of tolling our bell for the dead. I said I wasn't going to pray, because this is not on God. This is on us.

If you are wrapped in white skin, would you open some of these links? Would you read and pray and ponder what the authors have to say?

What do we DO now?, by Rev. Wendy Vander Hart, Acting Conference Minister, Massachusetts Conference, UCC

White Fragility: Why It's So Hard to Talk to White People About Racism, by Dr. Robin DiAngelo

Recommendation by our Theologian in the City, Rev. June Cooper

Recommended by (G)RACE TALKS:

Websites

BlackLivesMatter.com

RaceInquiry.com

Books

Between the World and Me, by Ta-Nehisi Coates

The Department of Justice report on the Ferguson, Mo. Police Department

Toxic Charity, by Robert D. Lupton