The Healthy Congregations Team:  Debra Valpey, Bev Ross, and Quinn Rose  share some thoughts on the Soul Matters theme of Liberation as it relates to healthy habits that benefit ourselves and our community.

Working for liberation asks of us to expand our awareness of the challenges that others face. While their “shackles” may be invisible to us, they are real to those who live with them. Healthy communications with others requires that we listen with humility and accept people where they are . It is valuable for us to always be learning about their, and our, history, social structures, and the nature of power so that we may better understand the contexts of oppression that people struggle with. However, it is even more important that we not let that learning cause us to make assumptions about how an individual experiences their life; only they can teach us that. Let’s liberate ourselves and each other from self-imposed and self-presumed assumptions. April 2020