“Ideology sparks movements, but relationships are what change organizations and sustain movements. It takes one relationship at a time. In the end changes to the leadership of the institution happen because of relationships, people pushing. We must place value on the relationships and the need to not leave folks behind in our quest for transformation.” -Elandria Williams
How have you witnessed relationships lead to larger transformation?
“Changes abound… around us, within us, between us; in our communities, our neighborhoods, and our beloved faith communities. Changes abound. May we each find the balance point we need as we move through our ever-changing world: the balance between the old and the new, between the known and the unknown, between the familiar and the perhaps bold and risky possibilities that may be there, waiting.” -Michelle Collins
How do you find the balance points in your life?
Change takes time. Often, it takes more time than we want it to, especially if the goal is real transformation and not just surface change. We remind ourselves that attaching urgency to change doesn’t make it better (or even necessarily faster), that urgency is a symptom of the culture of oppression in which we exist.
When have you had to teach yourself to let change take more time than you wanted it to?
A guitar needs to be retuned from time to time–sometimes in the middle of a performance. The instrument responds to its environment and the ways it is used, and sometimes it gets out of tune.
When in your life have you had to readjust something that had changed without you noticing?
“A few months ago I took a day-long workshop at East Bay Meditation Center or EBMC, in Oakland, California…. One of EBMC’s core teachings is to embody the Dharma—literally—by reminding us that we are embodied beings. So I was not surprised when this other teacher started leading us in movement meditation. But I was a bit apprehensive about whether my body would be able to move as requested.
“I needn’t have worried. Using language that acknowledged our various degrees of mobility in the room, she guided us to stretch and bend so far as we were able to, emphasizing that whatever we did was enough, asking us to be gentle with ourselves. She encouraged us to focus not on what our bodies couldn’t do but instead on what they could and did do. And that, for me, caused a profound shift.
“I realized that without being consciously aware of it I’d been thinking of my body as a machine that my mind rides around in, and machines break over time. But that way of thinking only looks at change in terms of loss, and the best you can do is to accept it.
“Instead, our teacher reminded us that whoever we are is in large part due to our bodies, however they are. Through the ongoing, inevitable process of change, we are continually becoming something new together.” – Kat Liu
How has your understanding of your body changed over time?
