Teaching (toward) the Beloved Community

Meeting people where they are

In social work we talk a lot about “meeting people where they are”. We mean it in the sense of beginning the work where the client is, not where we (or they) wish they were. We mean it in the sense of being non-judgemental, and of prioritizing client voice and choice. Below I reflect on a Biblical example of someone being met where they were. I don’t always connect my faith and my profession so explicitly on this blog (though they are always connected in real life), but when this example struck me a few weeks ago I haven’t been able to forget it.

Photo by u00d6zer u00d6zmen on Pexels.com

One day recently I was coming home, coming through the garage and into our house through our old homeschool room, which is now laundry disaster area, crafting and art making mecca, and temporary garden growing station. I knew that my middle daughter was home because I saw her car in the driveway, and she knew I was on my way home because I texted her when I left campus. So the two of us were in the know about who was home and who was coming home. No one was in the dark about that.

Well. I opened the door to the homeschool room and immediately heard screeching and screaming from her, who was an inch or two away from the door. Me being me, I started screeching and screaming too and there we stood, for almost a full minute, just screaming because we had scared each other so badly with our presence.

Imagine if either one of us had been in the space depicted in John 20, with the disciples in that locked room, when all of a sudden Jesus appears and calmly gave everyone a greeting of peace. I can’t fathom the screaming that would have happened if she and I would have been there. We might have been the focus of the next few verses instead of who we commonly, and I think mistakenly, refer to as “doubting Thomas”.

After his appearance in the room and his greeting of peace to everyone, Jesus says to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and look at my hands. Put your hand into the wound in my side. Don’t be faithless any longer. Believe!” He said that because Thomas had missed the first post resurrection sighting of Jesus, and despite what the other disciples told him, Thomas said he wouldn’t believe until he saw the scars in the hand and on the side. Jesus met him where he was.

When I was growing up, anytime I would express doubt at something, my granny called me a Doubting Thomas. I think that’s how a lot of people refer to him, but I would like to push back on that a bit or at least not make it the prime point of his identity. We know that Thomas had been a follower, and I think at that point in time, he was expressing some disbelief, some confusion. Something I have certainly experienced before. And Jesus had mercy on him, and provided him with the evidence he was seeking. This helped him be at peace, and get moving again toward the work he was called to do.

So many people I know right now are balancing tension between belief and disbelief, between faith and confusion, between certainty in the Lord and doubt. I have been in that place before. And know that Jesus will meet you where you are in your journey, whether it is on a road, in a room, through a hymn, in nature, or through community.

Some of us aren’t having a crisis of faith per se, but we are having a crisis of humanity. Why do so many “believers” spout racist talk? Why do some “believers” abuse power? And, on days that I balance the tension between wanting to lay on the couch and read a good book while the world burns around me, and going out to try to do a little good out in the world, I am thankful for people who meet me where I am in a non-judgemental way and help me remember the work I am called to do.

Moral of the story: (1) meet people where they are, in a non-judgemental way (2) help them hear their calling (3) let people into your life who can do these things for you.

Ponderings of an academic in early summer + resources for self care and mindfulness

A week ago we had graduation, and earlier this week I turned in my final grades. I have been alternating going through piles of paper, a slew of emails, and attending meetings. I have also done a couple of walks and enjoyed not feeling like my hair was on fair.

As graduation is more in my rearview mirror, I will eventually stop going into the office every day and I will read for fun and also take longer walks and get to spend more time with friends and family at a pace that is different than my normal. I eat healthier in the summer. I have more friend time and less screen time.

I flourish in the summer. (My friend Aimee calls this “Summer Sabrina”.)

I think it is important to note: Flourishing doesn’t equal “not working”. I am never fully away from my work for very long, because my work is a big part of my identity and something I feel called to do and be. I think what makes me flourish in the summer is the different pace of the work, and that I have time to reflect more and to think about different aspects of work (and life). And, as mentioned previously, my hair doesn’t feel like it is on fire.

The academic year is fast paced and sometimes frenetic. Even semesters that feel long go by quickly. I am not as mindful in the semester as I would like to be, and not as healthy.

All of this begs the question….what do I need to do differently to have aspects of Summer Sabrina in August through April? How can I practice some genuine self care (even if it is boring self care) so that I might be of better service to others?

Here are some short mindfulness exercises that I do practice fairly frequently, especially box breathing and a senses check in. One of the things I would like to incorporate more are journal prompts for deeper reflection. Here are 100 journal prompts for healing and reflection.

I also want to stretch my poetry and essay reading and writing throughout the year, not just summer. Here is one of my favorite poets and essayists: David Whyte I am also working personally on a collection of poems tied to headlines. How many have I written since last summer? One.

So….while I have other things on my bucket list, a big part of my summer “me time” will be thinking about how to have more wellness and more flourishing year round. If you know me in real life, hold me to this!

Environmental Impacts of AI

I hate AI on principle because of the impacts on the environment. It is profoundly, negatively affecting our environment, of which we only have one.

As a professor, I reaaaaallllly hate AI because it has made my work harder. (Harder in the frustrating sense, not harder in the sense of “I am struggling but learning” sense.) I may write about that differently another day, but today I am focusing on the environment.

Every week for the last several months I have found myself in a conversation with someone about AI, and most of the time this person has found a new use for it that they are smitten about. I generally make a face (the exact face you get depends on our relationship) and say, “But….the environment….”and the conversation really doesn’t go much past that point. It is not that people don’t care about the environment, it’s that people don’t know the depths of the environmental impact. I know that I didn’t. So I have committed to researching some reputable sources and hopefully my environmental arguments will land better in the future. (I say this knowing that even my computer use, anyone’s basic computer and energy use, also has environmental impacts. I know there are other ways I can live more sustainably too. We are all works in progress.)

Below are some of the highlights of what I learned. Let me know if you want more details and links b/c I can surely send them!

From MIT researchers: “Each time a model is used, perhaps by an individual asking ChatGPT to summarize an email, the computing hardware that performs those operations consumes energy. Researchers have estimated that a ChatGPT query consumes about five times more electricity than a simple web search”

From the UN Environment Programme: Globally, AI-related infrastructure may soon consume six times more water than Denmark, a country of 6 million, according to one estimate. That is a problem when a quarter of humanity already lacks access to clean water and sanitation.

The World Resources Institute has some data on the multiple ways that AI (especially data centers) impacts local communities, including the local environment (air and water quality especially).

There is also something known as “the green paradox”, explained in this article. In essence, there are ways that AI can theoretically contribute in a positive way to the environment, such as in monitoring deforestation and other ecosystems. However, the authors of this piece recognize that we are far from AI sustainability practices necessary for it to be more of an ally, and that right now AIs carbon and water footprints are growing faster than equivalent environmental benefits.

So, there you have it: the primary reason I hate AI. And while every time I say it, I feel like a 90 year old screaming to “get off my lawn”, I am going to learn to embrace it. Keeping green spaces and a healthy water supply is worth it.

Social Prescriptions, Loneliness, and Isolation

A few weeks ago I learned that it was “Social Prescription Day”, celebrated annually on March 26. I learned of this in the evening of March 26, of course, kind of too late to prescribe myself, or anyone else, something social to do. (If you are new to the term, social prescriptions are “a systematic approach to addressing patients’ social needs by referring them to or implementing community-based interventions and facilitating social connection based on individual need”. You can see this quote in context, and learn more about social prescriptions, by checking out this case/commentary note from the Journal of Medical Ethics.

Anyway, when I was preparing my class for March 27 (a Friday, so a 50 minute class), I decided I could tie in the idea of social prescriptions to my last class of the day: Social Work Practice with Children and Families. That week on Monday and Wednesday we had been talking about isolation that many families experience, the challenges of building social and instrumental supports with families, and the ways that isolation can increase risk for child abuse and neglect at the family and community system levels. So, we spent the first 10 to 12 minutes of Friday’s class finishing that discussion and looking at a program meant to build informal support networks around families. (You can check out the Family Hui Initiative here…very cool!)

And then I told my students they could have the rest of the class time to do something that would either reduce social isolation (if they were feeling isolated) or they could do something to promote social connection with others or among others. I told them I would ask them the following Monday what they had done, so they couldn’t just blow the rest of class off and be done with it.

I had some students who decided to pair up and go take a walk on campus (and it was a lovely day for that, one of our first warm spring days). I had other students who opted to stay in class and do social things with each other: I had brought a basket and bag of things to class with me: play dough, coloring books and markers and crayons, legos, Uno cards, and a puzzle. I had a couple of students take the sidewalk chalk I had bought and go outside toward the sidewalks around the quad.

I played Uno with four students, including one student who has come late consistently all semester and is new to campus this semester. We had to encourage her to join us, but when she did, she came alive in a different type of way. While we played we shared some about our weekend plans, but mostly about who we had played Uno with in the past, so we had a chance to learn about people’s families. I checked in periodically with the other groups who were coloring, building a replica of the campus clock tower out of legos, and puzzling.

The group that took the sidewalk chalk outside appeared at the end of class to return my chalk. One student who is not actually in my class, but had gotten caught up in the activity, came along with the others to return it. He said, and I quote, “that was very satisfying”.

I left class and walked back to my office feeling pretty good about the use of the time, both how it had tied into our recent content and also how it seemed to help give people a little lift. It definitely gave me a little lift.

The next morning I happened to be looking at social media, and someone on campus who works in a different building had come upon my students’ chalk art and took a picture of it. She said she walked around that building twice just to get to see it again. Our “social prescription” day gave her a little lift, and I hope it did others as well.

Last week in church, in his sermon, our minister said “isolation is where faith goes to die”. In 2023, the Surgeon General declared loneliness and isolation to be an epidemic, and the health impacts have been compared to smoking 15 cigarettes a day.

Whether we are talking about isolation or loneliness, two different but related things, it is clear that it is on many minds and hearts of people, both those who are “helpers” and those who are feeling the feelings (and these may overlap some, too).

The 2025 Stress in America Survey was conducted by The Harris Poll and the APA in August of 2025. Results from a nationally representative survey indicate that 54% of adults surveyed felt isolated, and 50% felt they were left out or lacking companionship often or some of the time.

There are interventions to reduce loneliness, and some therapies have been shown to be more effective than others. Therapy isn’t accessible to everyone, though, and isn’t a “cure-all”. I do think social prescriptions are a valid and viable tool.

The good news is, you can “prescribe them” for yourself, for your students, your congregation, your extended family….be intentional about making time and creating space for interacting with others.

Both professionally as a social worker and personally as a mother and basic human, I care very much that people “find their people”. If you need help or encouragement thinking about how you can find *your* people, here are a few ideas: (1)look in the “Hip <name of your community> facebook page”. I can almost guarantee you someone has asked in the group before “how do I meet people?”. Check out their local advice. (2) If you are a believer, but not active in a faith community, be intentional about visiting some places. Find your fit. (3) Visit your local library, local community garden, local greenway. Read bulletin boards for gathering opportunities and see who hangs out in those spaces. (4) Take the risk and ask someone for coffee or a walk. (5) Volunteer at a cause you believe in, and you will meet some like minded people.

And learn to embrace potentially feeling awkward while you are in new spaces….I am the queen of this. Find someone who cheers you on in this (both the making time for people, the intentionality of it, and the embracing of the awkward).

Render unto Caesar + Sources for helping people understand federal spending

As 1/2 of “married filing jointly” household that just paid their tax bill the day before it was due, I am a little salty.

Hear me clearly: I would cheerfully pay my current taxes (and pay more) if we had less income and wealth inequality in our country, and if we were taking progressive measures to get there.

I would not be salty about taxes if we invested more in public education (not voucher scams), or if we had more efficient and robust health care outcomes. (We spend a lot of money on healthcare relative to our GDP, but our outcomes are depressing compared to other countries with similar economies.)

I also support continuation of Social Security payments in hopes that I get there some day. I support taking care of our veterans, and more.

I have been taught in multiple settings that a budget is a moral document; we fund what we value. I am not decrying the need to pay taxes. Render unto Caesar. But I would prefer for my renderings to go toward things that are in alignment with the collective good, with love for others and care for creation. We can operationalize that in many meaningful and important ways. What will it take to get us there?

In looking at Center for Budget and Policy Priorities resources tonight, I took the screenshot below. Not only are we spending beyond our means, we are experiencing decimation of public services.

And with this pouring over the CBPP info, I broke my pledge to go to sleep at a decent hour. Alas. But as long as I am up, here are other sources useful for teaching students and others about federal spending: https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/federal-spending/ and, if you are wanting to track expenditures in as “real” a time frame as possible, this from The Hamilton Project is interesting: https://www.hamiltonproject.org/data/tracking-federal-expenditures-in-real-time/

Mail-in voting, the SAVE Act, and voting rights

This is a great resource for understanding the basics of the proposed SAVE America Act, from the National Conference of State Legislatures It is clear and fairly presented.

I have let my elected officials know my thoughts in opposition to this proposed act. I am in opposition to it not because I don’t care about fair elections and upholding voting integrity (I care very much) but because there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud, even using the most conservative database. In my state, there have been 26 cases of voter fraud since 1982 (and none by undocumented immigrants).

The proposed SAVE Act threatens voting accessibility for people with disabilities, rural voters and older voters, married women who have changed their names, and anyone who lacks access to passport and birth certificate.

As noted by the Bipartisan Policy Center, there are more efficient and cost effective ways to ensure citizenship verification that doesn’t lead to voter suppression.

Before posting this, I checked news sources from conservative to liberal, and they are all reporting the same: the president did mail-in voting to cast his own ballot as recently as last week. This, while he calls mail-in voting corrupt and cheating when other people do it. Ponder that while you are looking up the contact info for your Senators (where the vote is now) and making your voice heard.

I care a lot about voting! Here are some other pieces to check out from past me: https://teachingbeloved.com/2024/10/07/getting-out-the-vote-all-kinds-of-resources-related-to-voting/ and https://teachingbeloved.com/2020/09/19/rbg-and-the-voting-rights-act-and-renewing-our-resolve-in-the-next-45-days/ and https://teachingbeloved.com/2020/07/22/someone-struggled-for-your-right-to-vote-use-it/

Thoughts on a culture of toxic power, and the second death of a “hero”

Late one night this past week several friends sent me links to the stories about Cesar Chavez, a primary figure of the United Farmworkers’ Movement. One of the classes I teach most every fall includes content on community organizing, and I always talk about the tactics and strategies he used in organizing farmworkers.

Thankfully, he has never been the only person I have talked about in this movement. I have always talked about Dolores Huerta as an equal force in organizing farmworkers, though she has remained less well known than Chavez. (Though last fall, at an event on campus celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month, I hosted a screening of the 2018 PBS documentary Dolores and most of the students who came were not familiar with either name.)

Vergara, C. J., photographer. (2025) Dolores Huerta, farm workers mural.16th St., Milwaukee, WI
. United States Milwaukee Wisconsin, 2025. September 9. [Photograph] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/2026162509/.

Anyway…even though I have never focused only on Chavez, I have definitely held his work and his life—so I thought—in honor and esteem. The hunger strikes. The marches. The standoffs in the grape fields. His work was focused, honorable, and justice oriented. I held him in such esteem that I picked his stamps to be on my wedding invitations in 2003, for Heaven’s sake. I definitely would have called him a hero.

I never thought he was perfect. I definitely recognized his humanity. But I never thought he was a rapist and a pedophile. In thinking about this course that I teach coming around again in a few months, I will certainly make the movement the hero, as Huerta says in the NY Times article.

Thinking about Chavez’s “second death” (first, biological and second, moral/reputational), it makes me think of the broader issue of people in power (or even “spotlight”) using their power to sexually abuse others. Not every person in power abuses it in this way, but we have a long list of examples.

Jean Vanier, founder of the L’Arche Community for people with disabilities.

Church leaders. This may be the most easily hidden of all, since many faith communities don’t come into the spotlight.

Hollywood creatives, actors and producers.

So many political figures. So many.

The one whose name I can’t bring myself to type.

Honestly I could keep going but it is too depressing.

Clearly, there’s a broader issue to teach about here beyond community organizing strategies. How do we hold people in power accountable to just and right behavior? How do we hold systems accountable for censoring/stopping humans when they abuse/hurt others? What are the systemic/organizational traits that make it less likely a “leader” can abuse their power in this way?

We need interventions on multiple fronts to hold perpetrators accountable (no matter what position they hold) and also to hold systems/organizational cultures accountable.

I think this is one of the questions I will challenge my students with this fall as they prepare to work in non-profits, government systems, schools and more: How do you create a strong culture of safety in your workplace? What would you notice that it would tell you it is effective? What are the yellow or red flags that would tell you there are causes for concern?

Teaching about labor and workers’ rights

A couple of days ago (8/25) was the 100th anniversary of the first Black labor union, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. This is an example of a union that fought a long time to win increased wages and other rights, and is also a good example of co-occurring struggles for labor rights and civil rights more broadly. Seeing a reminder of this anniversary made me think a bit about other labor struggles that led to today’s progress…as well as the labor-related struggles we still face.

I always hope student have heard of Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta and their work with organizing farm workers, but if they haven’t, here is a helpful overview. There are also documentaries on their work and biographical films about each if you want a different genre to explore!

The Zinn Education Project also has great resources on teaching labor history, including lesser known organizers and people who were thrust into organizing because of their particular context…a great reminder that any of us could be/should be ready for “such a time as this”.

And, even though many of us enjoy Labor Day and all its traditions, there are so many worker rights issues in our country currently. Oxfam America says it simply and clearly: working poverty shouldn’t exist in one of the wealthiest countries in the world. This organization clearly outlines current worker rights issues in the US, an agenda for working families, and an interactive map on the crisis of low wages in the US. Oxfam also has a really informative interactive map/scorecard for the best and worst states for working women. As someone who teaches mostly women, this has been an interesting discussion starter in the past.

For several iterations of teaching a course on Poverty in the US, I used a book called A People’s History of Poverty in America. (Author is Stephen Pimpare). I stopped using it because I needed a newer book with more up to date statistics, but if you are looking for a book on the history of poverty in the US, this is a great one. Anyway, the picture below was on the cover of this book, and I always asked students to tell me what they were seeing. This illustration from William Balfour Ker is entitled “From the Depths”. Showing this picture and alongside data on income and wealth gaps could make for a very interesting labor-related discussion as well.

And for everyone who is a social work nerd and a history nerd combined (which might actually just be me!), you can also point someone in the direction of the 1937 presentation to the National Conference of Social Work on “Social Work and the Labor Movement”.

In all seriousness, though, I want my students to enjoy their day off from classes but I also want them to recognize the roots of labor day, and the labor struggles that still need people standing in solidarity.

Juneteenth: Resources for remembering, teaching and learning

Over the years I have written several social media posts about Juneteenth, also known as Emancipation Day, but never anything here, so I decided to put them all in one place in hopes that others find them useful for their own knowledge building or teaching. I was in my late 20s before learning about this day, from Dr. Vanessa Hodges, who at that time was a professor of Social Work at UNC. She later became my dissertation advisor and heaven granted her a lot of patience with that. I am so thankful for all she taught me, including about Juneteenth.

First up, a friend and colleague (Dr. Carmen Reese Foster) wrote this opinion piece for The Tennesseean (our Nashville newspaper) a few years ago on needing to move from performative acts to taking actions that address systemic racism. There is a lot of power in this piece, with the reminder that while Juneteenth was declared a federal holiday, the results have looked more like Juneteenth napkins and picnic ware at Walmart as opposed to policies that lead our nation to equity in income, housing, education, and more.

Reverend Dr. William Barber’s prayer and charge for Juneteenth is another powerful thing to watch and reflect on. You can see it here on Youtube. “Juneteenth can’t be merely a form of celebration but also consecration. When we remember it must be so that we understand that we can’t relax and we can’t retreat”. His exhortation and history lesson on slavery as an American original sin…not just a southern problem, is especially important. It is particularly chilling when he lists insurance companies and banks that insured and built wealth for enslavers…companies that are still around today (and were built on money from enslaving people). Also, stop saying Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves. Reverend Barber is a truth teller. “You passed the holiday but you won’t restore the voting rights…and you won’t pass living wages….or you won’t pass police reform….nothing but hypocrisy”.

Here is a podcast episode from Cite Black Women, recorded a couple of years ago, about the origins of Juneteenth. I learned so much about timeline of emancipation days, what happened in Galveston, connections between Juneteenth and “watch night” services, connections with early policies and the establishment of Black communities in Oklahoma, and more.

Here is a Juneteenth reading list from the National Museum of African American History and Culture. So many good resources on here! I can’t wait to get my hands on some of these, a combination of biographies, non-fiction, historical fiction, and poetry.

The Equal Justice Institute resource and daily calendar is a great resource year round, and their entry on Juneteenth is no exception.

And finally, at least for now, the Zinn Education Project has so much information on Reconstruction and Juneteenth, connections with Memorial Day and decoration of graves. Apart from the resources on history, there are also connections and teaching resources on policing, redlining, book bans, voter suppression laws, and the need to teach history truthfully.