GA 2022 - Portland - Day 2

 Article II Commission

Shared values

What are the actions we are called to do as a result of these values?

"Because I value ________, I covenant to ___________"

Dandelion (Dandy) Prinsloo

"Accountability, we love her! Obligation, we love her!"

Rev. Mykal Slack

"[It's important to have] some clear understanding about accountability when harm is done. Covenant doesn't mean much if we're not willing to have those hard conversations... how to name harm, what to do about it when harm is done - when it's ok, and when it's good to say 'enough is enough'. It matters that we're willing, in the context of something as powerful as covenant, to say, 'Actually, that cannot be. That cannot happen anymore. If you continue to do THAT, this is not the space for you.' 

We have to be willing to say those hard things in the context of something as valuable as covenant. And being able to communicate that? That is all a part of leading in community where covenant is present. Helping everyone understand the value of those things and help people move through those things in meaningful ways in a way that offers care and in a way that is clear. 

Any commitments we make to each other - have to be relational and not individualistic, they have to be robust, and not reluctant. It's important that they are transformational and not static, empowering and not stale. And the only way for that to happen is if it is a living, breathing agreement that shifts and moves as we need to move, and as we get clear about what it means to move in concert with one another."

Dr. Élias Ortega

"Our religious faith is a covenantal faith. It is a faith where we come as we are but not necessarily remain the same. This journey is a journey of transformation, of new being."

Neuroscience and Ethics

 

"The practice of love begins with acceptance."

Mirror neurons. Are our brains wired for empathy?

1. Brain activity observed in insula.  Body budget. Non-linear, ancestral workings. How well someone can read their own bodies and have feeling responses. Variability measured. We don't have mirror neurons for others' neurons. We interpret and rely on our stories. Early stories about survival of the fittest was tied to male-dominated scientists. Now that women are biologists, too, more research on nurturing and collective care, compassion. 

2. Need more cross-disciplinary work. Biased toward any reduction that says one part of the brain is thinking / doing communal attunement. Emotions are not separate from rational brain / thinking. Brain is a connected symphony (not 3 parts).

Book recommendation:

• How Emotions Happen - Lisa Feldman Barrett