Page 9 - Annual Meeting, 2022

Sacred Ground, Annual Report, 2021

During the last year, many of us have attended meetings, classes, and church services on
Zoom. And Zoom also made it possible for a group at St. Peter’s to participate in a program
called Sacred Ground: A Film Based Dialogue Series on Race and Faith. The curriculum was
created by the Episcopal Church to explore the roots of racial conflict in the United States.

The series examines the effects of race and racism throughout American history and explores
the impact of economic class, family background, and racial identity on different
communities. Before each Zoom meeting, we watched videos online and read assignments
from several books including White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo, Waking Up White by Debby
Irving, and Jesus and the Disinherited by Howard Thurman. Catherine led our group, which
included people from St. Peter’s, as well as several from neighboring churches. Members of
the group shared their own experiences, and we all learned a lot.
In 2021 the group continued learning by reading Caste: The Origins of our Discontents, by
Isabel Wilkerson, The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How we Can Prosper
Together, by Heather McGee, and All that She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black
Family Keepsake, by Tiya Miles. We have been talking recently about ways that St. Peter’s
can become part of what Bishop Curry calls the Beloved Community. As a first step, we are
planning to invite the Diocese of Virginia Missioner for Racial Justice and Healing, Dr. J. Lee
Hill, Jr., to speak at St Peter’s, either in person or via Zoom. In addition, the group has asked
the Vestry to provide $500 to establish a scholarship allowing a Caroline County minority
student to attend Germanna. We hope that as the group firms up plans for the future, we will
have more information about the new scholarship fund and that many in the congregation
will want to contribute to it.

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