Invitation to 2024 Racial Justice and Healing Retreat

I was born and raised in Minnesota, a state I love deeply. The older I become, the more I realize I still have to learn about our people, history, and geography. As the facilitator of ECMN’s Racial Justice and Healing Commission, one of my joys has been meeting other Episcopalians around the state eager to do this work. Together, grounded in our faith and liturgy, we are able to learn new-to-us stories. Together, we repent the heartbreak and ways we were complicit in racial injustice, we celebrate our state’s beautiful diversity, where the Holy Spirit has been and is moving, and we walk with hope into the future as followers of Jesus. It is hard. It is vulnerable. It is hopeful. We are in good company.

Another joy is to invite you to our next retreat Saturday, October 12 at Messiah, Church Prairie Island.

Our inaugural retreat was September 2023 at St. John the Evangelist, St. Paul. That retreat was focused on four interwoven areas that propel us into the work of self-interrogation, racial healing, and justice-making: liturgy, history, advocacy, and somatic/body awareness. We believe these areas allow us to engage racial healing in a way that is fully immersed in our Episcopal theology and call as followers of Jesus.

Our current dream and work is to adapt this retreat so that it can travel around the state. Our October retreat is a partnership with the good people of Messiah Church, Prairie Island and Christ Church, Red Wing. At Messiah, like all future retreats, the framework will remain grounded in liturgy with somatic work. Each new place we go, we will focus on history and advocacy topics guided by and relevant to the community we are in. I’m excited at Messiah to listen to Dakota storytellers and dwell with what they share, to sing from the Dakota hymnal, and break bread with everyone present.

I hope you will join us.

Learn more and register here.