Fincastle / Botetourt County, Virginia
Intro Videos
About
Sacred Ground: An Exploration of Race and Faith, is a 10-session transformational conversation about race, sponsored by the Roanoke Convocation of the Episcopal Diocese of Southwestern Virginia. The Sacred Ground series is part of the Becoming Beloved Community initiative of The Episcopal Church: a long-term commitment to racial healing, reconciliation, and justice in our personal lives, our ministries, and our society.
· Who: Episcopalians in the Roanoke Convocation who are interested in exploring issues of race through the lens of faith.
· What: Each session in the 10-part dialogue series is built around a powerful online curriculum of documentary films and readings. Anticipate preparatory work for each session.
· When: Beginning in January 2022. Registration opens in December.
· Where: Multiple dialogue circles will be available. Stay tuned for more details.
· Questions? Contact Jenny Fife, Coordinator at 540-797-8174 or email SacredGroundRoanoke@gmail.com
· For More Information about Sacred Ground: visit https://episcopalchurch.org/sacred-ground
Background Information
The Sacred Ground series is part of the Becoming Beloved Community initiative of The Episcopal Church, a long-term commitment to racial healing, reconciliation, and justice in our personal lives, our ministries, and our society.
Sacred Ground is a race dialogue series designed for these times. It is an attempt to be responsive to the profound challenges that currently exist in our society. It is focused on the challenges that swirl around issues of race and racism, as well as the difficult but respectful and transformative dialogue we need to have with each other about them.
Sacred Ground invites participants to walk back through history in order to peel away the layers that brought us to today, and to do so in a personal way, reflecting on family histories and stories, as well as important narratives that shape the collective American story. It holds the vision of beloved community as a guiding star – where all people are honored and protected and nurtured as beloved children of God, where we weep at one another’s pain and seek one another’s flourishing.
Quotes
“Understand that this is sacred ground and it hurts to walk here. But at the same time, I ‘need’ to walk here, need the strength, the sense of purpose, the knowledge of self, that walking here imparts. What do I want from you? I want you to be my sister and to walk here with me. I know it’s a hard walk. I know it causes you pain. But this much I also know: If ever we learn to tread this ground together, there’s no place we can’t go.” —Leonard Pitts, Jr.
”My commitment to racial justice is both on behalf of the other – my neighbor, whose well-being I desire – and for myself, to whom the gift of life has been given but not yet fully claimed.” —The Rev. Rebecca Parker
“But the end is reconciliation; the end is redemption; the end is the creation of the beloved community. It is this type of spirit and this type of love that can transform opposers into friends. The type of love that I stress here is not eros, a sort of esthetic or romantic love; not philia, a sort of reciprocal love between personal friends; but it is agape which is understanding goodwill for all men. It is an overflowing love which seeks nothing in return. It is the love of God working in the lives of men. This is the love that may well be the salvation of our civilization.” ––The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
