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We Are Witnesses
On Wednesday, June 3, 2020, MWEG hosted its inaugural Town Hall: “If All Lives Matter, then Black Lives Matter: Turning Frustration into Productive Interpersonal Action.” After inspiring words by featured presenter Dr. LaShawn Williams, MWEG’s anti-racism committee lead, Charlotte Mountain, shared these thoughts. “One witness shall not rise up against a man for any iniquity, or for any sin, in any sin that he sinneth: at the mouth of two witnesses, or at the mouth of three witnesses, shall the matter be established” (Deuteronomy 19:15). What this is telling us is that it is righteous and good that there be corroboration to any prosecution. We should not be convicted on…
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The Way of Openness :: Conventions for Productive Dialogue
Melissa Wei-Tsing Inouye was the plenary speaker at the 2020 Mormon Women for Ethical Government spring conference. These are her remarks. To view the video of her presentation, click here. Thank you very much for the privilege of speaking to you today. I am very humbled to have this opportunity to share useful tools for difficult conversations. First, I will explain where I’m coming from, the experiences that shape my worldview. Then I’ll explain the Way of Openness, which is a set of conventions for productive dialogue, and give examples of how these conventions work in practice. Finally, I’ll leave you with some thoughts from where I am right now,…
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Are You Aware? On the Street — Greater Love Hath No Man
This is part III in our “battlefronts” Awareness Wednesday series. Read the other posts in the series here. Are you an essential worker? I am. Every day I go out into the world to help you, my friends, to be able to remain safe. I am not a nurse like Kious Kelly, a 48-year-old assistant nurse manager at Mount Sinai West. This is the hospital in NYC where nurses wore trashbags because they did not have access to the recommended personal protective equipment (PPE). Kious Kelly died of COVID-19. I am not a doctor like Frank Gabrin who had texted a friend to report the lack of PPE in the emergency…
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Awareness Wednesday :: Xenophobia, Part II — Symptom of a Virus
The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their right names. — Chinese Proverb In the closing months of 2019, a novel coronavirus jumped from animals to humans and began spinning a web of infection, starting with the people of China and spreading with staggering speed worldwide. The virus, and its potentially deadly symptoms, are not the only thing being disseminated on a global scale. Xenophobia, particularly toward those of Asian descent, has seen a dramatic rise in the ensuing months, both here in the United States and around the world. A young woman from Brooklyn reported that while visiting Washington D.C., a man started making faces at her on the metro. She…
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Are You Aware? LGBTQ+ Education Introduction
This is part I in our LGBTQ+ Education Awareness Wednesday series. Read the other posts in the series here. My husband and my oldest son have brown eyes, I have gray eyes, and my younger son has grayish-green and gold hazel eyes — I don’t have any other way to describe them. My husband has dark brown (almost black), salt-and-pepper hair. My hair is naturally brown, though I choose to highlight it to cover some of the gray that started showing up when I was 16 years old. My youngest has red hair, and I don’t even know what color to call my oldest son’s hair. Sometimes I say red or…
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Awareness Wednesday :: Unintended Consequences — Ban the Box
It is no secret that an individual with a criminal background will struggle to find employment. It goes without saying that the majority of employers do not want to hire ex-convicts. Learning that a future employee once attempted murder, committed a string of robberies, or even sold drugs is an unsettling feeling for any employer. The stigma of a conviction and time served is not an easy obstacle to overcome. In order to lower the barriers faced by those who have been convicted of a crime to being offered a job, fair-chance policies or “ban the box” laws have been introduced. Ban the box is legislation that restricts employers from…
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Sabbath Devotional :: Zion
I have a confession to make. I haven’t always been a fan of the notion of Zion. When I was younger, I thought Zion meant that we all had to be the same. You know, same heart, same mind. And I couldn’t bear the thought of all that sameness. I was, of course, mistaken. We don’t have to look beyond the natural world to recognize how much God values — delights in, even — diversity. As the Jesuit priest and poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote: Glory be to God for dappled things – For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow; For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;…
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Sabbath Devotional :: Be One / There is a Place for All
Be One, by Chante’ Stutznegger On Friday night, I had the opportunity of being part of the Be One choir at the 40th anniversary celebration of the 1978 revelation on the priesthood. The weeks leading up to this celebration were a roller coaster of emotions, to say the least. The fake apology letter that surfaced had many of us raw and so emotionally vulnerable that it was hard to swallow the word “celebration” as it relates to such a difficult and heartbreaking topic. Yet, my hope for what this monumental occasion could mean for us stayed strong. I continually fought the thought, “how can we celebrate so much pain?” Each…
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Sabbath Devotional :: Find Your Calm Center
A few weeks ago, I came to myself in the middle of my family room late one night. I say that I “came to myself” because I’d spent that day, and the days before it, in such a frazzled mental state that I had hardly had a moment to check in with myself either physically or mentally. The last months in my life have been a study in balance: My career has been at an intense moment, my health has been struggling, my family has somehow still needed to be fed, and I’ve been trying to learn how to live with the constant emotional fluctuation that I’ve felt since the…