August Eliot 2023: "At the Water's Edge" with Rev. Mykal Slack

At the Water's Edge:

Staying Present for the Realness of the Moment

Program Description:
Being confronted by the intensity and uncertainty that change brings is a real part of living in the world and a necessary aspect of growing in our Unitarian Universalism. How can we stay present with care and without doing harm to ourselves or others in the process? What is mindfulness in the context of radical welcome and culture shift? How does an embodied approach move us from intensity and uncertainty to clarity and call? Join Rev. Mykal as we consider these questions together at the water’s edge.

Bring your whole self to our time together. Also, consider bringing items (i.e., a picture or a drum), words, songs, and practices that ground you.

Bio: 
Rev. Mykal O’Neal Slack (he/him) is a speaker, trainer, worship leader, community minister and congregational life coordinator in Unitarian Universalist, Christian, and other faith settings. He has a ministry and calling to nurture spaces where people can 1) connect in ways that heal, not harm; 2) talk about and re-imagine church life that truly honors our differences; and 3) make sustainable changes that are an outgrowth of spiritual practice, deep listening, and active engagement in community.

Rev. Mykal is the Community Minister for Worship and Spiritual Care for Black Lives of Unitarian Universalism, an organization and ever-growing spiritual community that provides spiritual care, support and resources to black people who center Love, Justice, and Liberation in spiritual journeys of all kinds. Whether most connected to African diasporic spiritualities and traditions, Buddhism, Christianity, Earth-centered traditions, Atheism, Humanism, Agnosticism, Judaism, or any combinations thereof, Black people of every path make BLUU their home for a Unitarian Universalism that centers Blackness.

He is also one of the co-founders of the Transforming Hearts Collective, an organizing ministry that both supports spaces for LGBTQIA people to access resilience, healing, and spirituality and resources faith communities and other groups for the work of radical welcome and culture shift.