Reverend Denise Tracy continues her exploration of Beloved Community with vivid stories that show how compassion dissolves fear and how ordinary people can rise to extraordinary humanity. Drawing on the musical Come From Away, she reflects on the generosity of the people of Gander, Newfoundland, who sheltered thousands of stranded travelers after 9/11. Through song and story, the musical reveals how strangers overcame fear, grief, and difference to form lifelong bonds—an embodiment of beloved community that continued long after the crisis ended. Reverend Tracy connects this to her own experiences of unexpected connection, from a simple exchange with a family in Brussels to witnessing a diverse crowd united by music in a public square.

Her message widens into a meditation on the countless ways people quietly care for one another every day—through worship, through crisis response, through acts of solidarity that rarely make headlines. She reminds us that beloved community is not an abstract ideal but something we create in real time, with the people right in front of us. Whether in a Zoom service, a village cemetery in Belgium, or an airport gate in Albuquerque, the sacredness of community emerges when people choose compassion, presence, and shared responsibility.

Reverend Tracy closes with a call to action rooted in Unitarian Universalist values: to witness, to help, to speak, to sing, to show up for one another, and to build the beloved community both within our congregations and beyond them. Her reflections, paired with the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., invite listeners to imagine a world where love guides our choices and where every day offers an opportunity to create connection. It’s a moving, hopeful message—one that will stay with listeners long after the episode ends.

🎙️ Synopsis

Transcending the Power of Words That Bind Us — Deb Reich (introduced by Jack Reich)

The podcast opens with host Barbara Jean Walsh introducing a Vespers Service featuring writer and peace‑builder Deb Reich, preceded by a warm biographical introduction from her brother Jack Reich. Jack traces Deb’s journey from her New York upbringing to her decades living in Israel and Palestine, where she immersed herself in both Jewish and Palestinian communities and committed her life to intercommunal reconciliation.

Deb’s central theme is how certain words and phrases—especially those used in discourse about Israel and Palestine—become “sacred terminology” that both inspire and imprison us. She argues that these emotionally charged terms accumulate symbolic weight over generations, eventually constraining thought, empathy, and political imagination.

She reflects on her own evolving relationship with words like “Zionism,” “democracy,” “homeland,” “resistance,” and “liberation.” Raised to see Zionism as wholly positive, she was stunned to discover how Palestinians experienced the same word as the source of their suffering. She illustrates how language becomes a kind of ideological inheritance, shaping identity and allegiance long after its original meaning has shifted or fractured.

Deb shares stories from her life, including her work with peace organizations, her friendships across communities, and her experiences living in a Muslim Arab village. These stories highlight how direct human contact dissolves the abstractions that words often harden into. She contrasts this with the way slogans, dogma, and political rigidity—on both left and right—can “gaslight” people into avoiding uncomfortable truths.

She critiques the way certain activist phrases (e.g., “from the river to the sea”) or Israeli statements (e.g., “there are no innocents in Gaza”) function as verbal weapons, shutting down dialogue and alienating potential allies. She also examines the Palestinian concept of anti‑normalization, acknowledging its historical logic but lamenting how it has often suffocated grassroots cooperation.

Deb refuses to be bound by the word “genocide,” insisting that the moral catastrophe in Gaza must be confronted without becoming trapped in semantic battles. She emphasizes the human toll—trauma, displacement, grief—and the profit motives that quietly fuel ongoing destruction.

Throughout, she returns to the idea that language can either entrench enmity or open pathways to shared humanity. She describes her own transformation as she learned Arabic, lived among Palestinian families, and experienced daily life in all its ordinariness—children playing, neighbors calling to one another, the rhythms of village mornings. These experiences, she says, “irrevocably humanized” the people and the language for her.

In the Q&A portion, Deb expands on the psychological exhaustion many Israelis feel, the lack of political leadership committed to justice, and the research organizations that track public sentiment. She recommends books that illuminate lived experiences on both sides and discusses long‑term political possibilities, including confederation models that might someday evolve into shared governance—though she stresses that such visions require healing, trust, and leadership not currently present.

The podcast closes with an invitation to explore more UUMUAC programming and to engage with the organization’s work toward multiracial unity and justice.

If you are wondering what UUMUAC, or even multiracial unity, is all about, you’ve come to the right place. Barbara Jean Walsh, and I am the vice-chair of UUMUAC, the Unitarian Universalist Multiracial Unity Council. One of the first people I met after moving to Chicago a few years ago was Finley Cambell. It has been a real treat for me to work on archiving his audio files since I did not have the opportunity to hear him deliver full-length services in person. This particular sermon is an excellent introduction to the spirit and philosophy of the man who founded UUMUAC – and why.

Rev. Dr. Finley C. Campbell’s 2006 Black History Month sermon is a powerful, dramatic, and deeply engaging exploration of race, history, and the future of Unitarian Universalism. Delivered in his signature “dramatic monologue” style, the sermon blends humor, scholarship, storytelling, and prophetic urgency. Campbell invites the congregation to join him in a three‑act “drama,” asking them to listen not just as observers but as participants in a shared moral struggle.

Speaking against the backdrop of a turbulent 2006—Supreme Court battles, war, political polarization, the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and the death of Coretta Scott King—Campbell argues that we are living in a time of “irrepressible conflict.” In such a moment, he says, understanding the multiracial roots of Black history is essential for building a just and unified future.

Campbell challenges the congregation to distinguish between diversity and division. Diversity, he notes, has always been part of the Black experience, shaped by centuries of interracial relationships—both loving and violent. But diversity becomes dangerous when it fragments community instead of strengthening it. He reminds listeners that the great movements for justice in American history succeeded only when people of many backgrounds worked together.

A major portion of the sermon unpacks the origins of racism, which Campbell describes not as natural prejudice but as a deliberately constructed ideology. Drawing on history, theology, and personal experience, he shows how racism was created to justify slavery, institutionalized in the Constitution through the Three‑Fifths Compromise, and reinforced by scientists, artists, churches, and governments. He distinguishes racism from prejudice and bigotry, arguing that racism is a system—one that empowers bigots and shapes national policy.

Campbell then turns to the future, echoing Martin Luther King Jr.’s warning that America must choose between chaos or community. He argues that Unitarian Universalists face a similar choice: between a multiculturalism that keeps groups separate and a multiracial unity that brings people together in shared struggle. True unity, he insists, is not colorblindness but a “rainbow of steel”—distinct identities joined in common purpose.

The sermon ends with a call to action. Campbell urges congregations to become sites of resistance, places where people can find solidarity, courage, and community in the face of political and economic challenges. He envisions a Unitarian Universalism that embodies the universalist ideal: a fellowship that transcends race, class, and nation, grounded in justice and human dignity.

This sermon is rich, challenging, and often humorous. It moves quickly—from Aristotle to Jefferson, from South Pacific to the Civil War, from biblical imagery to contemporary politics—yet it remains deeply personal and grounded in lived experience. Whether read or heard, it offers a compelling vision of what multiracial community can be.

Many thanks to Finley’s wife and comrade Bobbi for give UUMUAC access to this and other recordings.