John T. Crestwell, Jr. Emergent Strategy February 21, 2021
What we pay attention to grows. In beloved community, we rely on each other. To be in BC resiliency is required, trust is necessary, and decentralized leadership is what makes our fractal patterns spread far and wide.
Unitarian Universalism needs a new way to BE so that we can grow at the speed of trust. We are stuck and in a major paradigm shift locally and nationally. What we have done thus far as a faith and congregation has been good but not great. We are still not a racially diverse religion. We still struggle with expressing our underlying feelings and needs without blaming, and we are hesitant to embrace racial literacy. This of course is the human condition—this is not just something UUs wrestle with. We all struggle with this, but we can do better. We do better by embracing a new paradigm of being together. Adrienne Maree Brown in her book Emergent Strategy says that we can indeed be more of what we want to be if we learn how to “grow at the speed of trust”, how to be resilient, how to decentralize leadership, and how to pay attention to things that will help us grow.
In Brown’s work with Occupy and Black Lives Matter, and other grassroots organizations, she has experienced many highs and lows. She’s seen the power of groups when they are unified in understanding their differences and how to collaborate to do justice-making. She has also seen groups devolve into distrust, bitterness, and despair where blaming becomes the focus and unhealthy things get attention.
I’ve already mentioned that “what we pay attention to grows” (earlier in the service) so I won’t go any deeper with this one. But let’s look at resiliency because that is what I’m alluding to. To be resilient is “being able to recover from adversity.”(dictionary.com). We fall down but we get back up. Sometimes we must stay down awhile but getting back up means we come back to the table of beloved community. We get tired and despair sometimes, but we never fully lose hope for building and being in right-relationship. We keep coming back for more because we truly believe in what we are doing and the values we are holding together. Resiliency is necessary. We must keep making lemonade out of lemons. Why? So that we can have some semblance of hope. And we are co-creating this new reality. If we cannot see it into being it cannot become. And, joy and love are necessary to do this work. It’s what healthy cells do—they seek health. So then, my mistakes are really my lessons, therefore, I can look at life as an evolving journey and not a judgment or prison sentence for me or others. As a result, I move from sickness to health again and again; I attract and create that which I am because I am a fractal Fibonacci pattern of cyclical matter.
Trust is needed too. Trust is earned indeed. But trust also starts with a premise… Do I see others as a liability or an asset or maybe both? If I see humanity as a liability I will keep my guard up most of the time and my experience of life will be limited. If I see humans as myself, and I love and trust myself, then my guard is mostly down—I will see that there’s more to every human than meets the eye—that we are more alike than unalike. Yes, you run the risk of being hurt but without risk, there is no reward. Now if you say it’s “both” then you are with me. I am open and guarded, but mostly open because, as Adrienne Maree Brown and others have said, “humans and organisms seek health.” I trust that most are trying to do their best. So, although most of us trust and verify we also can let our guard down often because most humans want to be healthy even when they don’t know-how.
I do understand if you must keep your guard up. I’m sensitive to this reality. Many individuals and tribes of people have been hurt and traumatized by others. But even in those cases without trust, one cannot heal from the harm. I know it takes time. Trust in any system is vital to its success, sustainability, and continuity. If you are struggling with trust I ask that you examine your fears, biases, motives. Fear is real, and life is scary, lonely, and crazy at times. But life is also lovely and caring too. What you pay attention to grows for better or worse. Be careful what you are giving your attention to… That’s why I had to turn off the news on television two weeks ago. After the disappointing Impeachment, I had to let the news go. It was too toxic. It was feeding too much negative energy into my body. I was having a visceral reaction. I knew it was time for a break. Time to meditate and pray. So now, I sit in silence with my morning tea or coffee.
With trust we can collaborate (work together) to build beloved community. We can also trust that the work will get done. I don’t want to be a leader whose nose has to be in every conversation or everything that’s going in. That’s insecure leadership. I also don’t want to be the kind of leader that has to lead everything. I don’t mind leading some things, and I don’t mind following others. Shared leadership is the new paradigm. The old paradigm was/is a predatory paradigm based on conquering people, places, and things. The new one is about collaboration; modeling shared leadership and building decentralized power. That’s what BLM is—decentralized leadership. You can’t target one particular leader because there are leaders all across the world! In the old way, you could remove one person and stop the movement. This was a flaw in the Civil Rights Movement—too much power rested with one person. And that creates burnout, envy, and disorganization.
The work Rev. Anastassia and I want to do with you means that each one of you has your own ministry. You are the congregation’s social justice. Certainly, we have Anne Arundel Connecting Together (ACT), The Lighthouse volunteer work with the homeless, the Prison Ministry, outreach collections, and other things, but we also believe that the work you do with the congregation in your personal life is OUR work. Whether you mention the words UU Church of Annapolis or unitarian universalism you are in still doing the work of the church by living and lifting its values wherever you go.
Which is why the ministers plan to have a meeting with every member or friend at UUCA who does anything social justice or community-related—personally or professionally—inside or outside our doors. Let’s see how far and wide our work goes. Also, let’s see what we can co-create collaboratively. I imagine that many are doing things that most of us don’t even know about. Let’s sit and listen to each other and find joy in sharing how we are making a difference in our local community. And that’s what decentralized leadership is… When you TRUST that the other’s got your back; when you know the work is getting done even when you aren’t there. Or, when you do as much as you can—you can trust that when you pass the baton in the relay race your teammate will do their best. That’s how we rely on and relay with each other. That’s collaboration and decentralized leadership.
I have always seen the UU church as the place activists go to get recharged. We might come here with a half a tank, quarter of a tank or on empty one, but we all get recharged by the kinetic spirit of this beloved community.
My wife Joni was telling me something she did which is a good example of what I’m talking about. She works for a government organization that has thousands of employees. They were having a teamwork meeting to share some best-practices with every employee. Well, there Joni was as a Unitarian Universalist spreading our message. She said, “We are more alike than unalike.” She also said: “We are a part of an interdependent web.” When the printout of the report of the meeting was disseminated—there it was large and prominent—what she had said. That’s what being a UU is to me. I don’t really care who gets the credit because it’s about world transformation. I don’t do this work for others to tell me that I’ve done a good job. I do this because I’m called to do it. I do this because it is life-affirming and life-saving work. Why do you do what you do?
This new way that your ministers are building is not about competition but instead collaboration. I like to say that competition creates champions, but collaboration creates community–and that’s our goal—collaboration.
In summary, let’s focus on what helps us grow, trust that our people want to be healthy; and choose resiliency. You are the leader that you’ve been looking for. And do forget to find some joy in the process because building beloved community is not just about doing the hard work. It is also about joy. Church is about celebration and joy as much as it is about justice-making (it’s both /and).
Rev. Anastassia and I enjoy working together. It’s a joy. BTW, I like the word (enjoy) “in joy”. We like to work IN JOY. If your work does not have any joy it is probably imbalanced and will become predatorial…It will go extinct. In this new age, we must develop emergent strategies that model successful organisms in nature. Read Ms. Brown’s book to understand how to align your work and life with a fractal pattern that will replicate and grow in healthy and sustaining ways. And that’s why your ministers do our best to bring joy to our work. Even though some weeks are rough—this is hard work sometimes—but we rest and recover and come back for more. Why? Because we believe in love, justice, and joy. And we believe in UUism and the values we hold. And that is our come back shot—joy… That is our vaccine in a very sick and toxic world. But it is also a world filled with a million brilliant and beautiful things. I hope my words today provide some clarity and insight into this, our beloved community. May it be so.
