Recap of Dr. Meek’s presentation by Episcopal Peace Fellowship – Maine Chapter
In January, Episcopal Peace Fellowship’s monthly series of free, online Peacebuilding presentations featured a dynamic talk by Dr. Catherine Meeks on racial healing. Executive Director of the Absalom Jones Center for Racial Healing in the Diocese of Atlanta, Dr. Meeks addressed a Zoom audience of 61 EPF members around the country. In combatting racial injustice in our society, she asserted at the outset that “white folks have also been wounded by racism.” White supremacy is a belief that has wounded all of us. Our approach to change needs to come, she said, from a place of “broken-heartedness,” by facing fairly and squarely our mutual “woundedness.” Together, white people can unite with people of color on a common pilgrimage toward liberation. As a Jungian psychologist, social worker, and much sought after workshop leader, Catherine Meeks told her EPF listeners that in our zeal to cure racism we look in all the wrong places. There is both an ‘outer community’ and an “inner community” in each of us, and the work of racial healing must begin by looking inward, examining our personal histories and deepest thoughts, convictions, prejudices. “Interrogate yourself,” she adjured, if you really want to wake up! When asked how the work of racial healing relates to peace building, she answered simply, “There can be no peace without justice.”