Abandoned by My Church

In my case, the spiritual challenge before me has been to refrain from cynicism, despair and "snark" about The United Methodist Church. I have seen too much of the ugly underbelly of the institution over the past quarter of a century, and staring too long at darkness can impede one's vision of light.

Moreover, during those 24 years, many people – I would venture to say as many as hundreds – of United Methodists who have been injured by the institution have turned to me to bare their wounds and share their stories. My empathy for their collective plight has left me with scars of my own, making for a very jaundiced view of the workings of the church.

So when I met with my spiritual director before General Conference, she asked me what concrete plan I had for achieving my spiritual goals. I mentioned constant prayer, including times apart with God, to strive to see all delegates as God's beloved daughters and sons. I now report, to my consternation, that my plan has been sorely tried by the actions of the General Conference.

Heartbroken

In short, I am heartbroken at the loss of the General Commission on Religion and Race and the General Commission on Status and Role of Women in the new structure of the United Methodist general agencies. They have been replaced by a "Committee on Inclusiveness." To my mind, the denomination has achieved its streamlining on the backs of women and people of color, a discouraging symbol that the UMC values material success more than people.

I confess that the restructure hurts personally because it impacts me twice as a woman of mixed-race heritage. Our family descends in part from the Lumbee people, who intermarried with freed slaves around Fayetteville, NC. I discovered this heritage some years ago only after deep research into our family's geneaology, because the culture of segregation in the South caused my great-grandparents to hide their racial identities. Hence, I have the blood of both Native Americans and African Americans flowing through my veins. This knowledge has given me a new understanding and affiliation with people of color, along with new awareness of how my own family sacrificed its true nature to access the privilege of whiteness. In America, being white has meant life, pure and simple.