Let’s Talk: About the Expansiveness 

By Conference Minister Diane Weible

Recently I was in a space late at night where there was almost no artificial light, just the darkness and the stars in the sky. I looked up at the vast expanse of sky with wonderment.  

It’s hard to look at something like that and not realize a few things about life: 

1. God is awesome. 

1. We are each a very small part of a very vast universe. 

1. If we ever start thinking we are somehow the center of the universe, go back to #1.  

In our busy lives, we sometimes get so wrapped up in what is happening in our immediate surroundings that we miss out on the bigger picture of the world around us and on the reality that we are a small part of God’s great creation.  

Remembering that we are part of something much bigger than ourselves is an invitation to expansiveness—expansiveness of heart, vision and community.  

I know that when I am able to step away from the immediacy of my thoughts and surroundings, I am reminded of what it means to be part of the whole—the whole of humanity and the whole of creation. When I think of that in terms of systemic racism, I find a clarity of vision that I don’t always have when I am only thinking about my own reality and how I experience the world.  

In this newsletter, there is an invitation for you to sign up for our next Let’s Talk About Race series of conversations that will be held this summer, leading up to our Annual Gathering Keynote Address with Civil Rights Activist Ruby Sales on August 21. These conversations will take themes that Ruby will address in her keynote and invite participants into a conversation meant to create expansiveness in vision, heart and community. While not required to experience our August 21 keynote, the conversations series is an opportunity to open our thinking and hearts in preparation for this event.  (There is no charge, but you must register.) 

Whether you attend this series or not, my prayer for each of us is that we will find moments each day to look out at the world that God has created and lean into the expansiveness I believe God is inviting all of us to experience in transformative ways.